Past Tense
by Closet Scrawler
Summary: Spock and McCoy find themselves trapped in Iowa's past, chasing down a Romulan assassin. -Not Slash-
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** This one might get a tad complicated (time travel often does) so if I miss anything please tell me.

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><p><strong>=(^)= Past Tense =(^)=<strong>

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><p>"Be careful what you wish for, Jim," McCoy warned from Kirk's left side.<p>

"Doctor McCoy," Spock began from his right, and Kirk could _feel_ McCoy rolling his eyes without even looking, "wishing for something does not make it so, good or bad."

"Gentlemen," Kirk said even as McCoy drew a breath to retaliate. He put up a hand on either side of himself in an effort to ward off one of their philosophical debates while he kept walking down the center of a corridor of his ship. In the grand scheme of things, he knew that he should be grateful for the uneventful past few weeks. But if this kept up much longer, he thought he might go crazy. "All I'm saying is that this mapping expedition is getting a little dull."

"Well," McCoy said with a lazy drawl of tolerant amusement, "you have to _find_ the new worlds and civilizations before you can—" he broke off as a sudden light flared into existence with blinding brightness.

"What the hell?" Kirk demanded, blinking rapidly in an effort to get rid of the spots blotting out his vision.

"Oops," McCoy's voice said, but it came from the wrong direction and Kirk spun around to face it. McCoy and Spock were now standing several feet in front of him, but looked much worse for wear. Kirk frowned in confusion at his chief medical officer, whose blue medical tunic was smeared with dried blood. Beside him, Spock looked even worse. His uniform was torn in multiple places and a greenish yellow bruise was spreading across his jaw.

"Fascinating," Spock said from beside him, and Kirk jerked around to see McCoy and Spock both staring at their doppelgangers.

"Oh no, I remember this," McCoy-2 said, and seized Spock-2's arm. "No, Jim, wait!" he cried even as Kirk's fist smashed into the com on the wall.

"Intruder alert, deck six!" the captain said urgently. "Intruder alert!"

"This is too late!" McCoy-2 shouted over the caterwaul of the red alert claxon going off. "Go back sooner!"

Spock-2 heaved a patient sigh as he adjusted the controls of a silver device strapped to his left wrist. "That would be considerably easier if you would cease jostling my arm."

"Dammit, Spock, we don't have time for this!"

"On the contrary, Doctor, we have all the time—"

"You know damn well what I meant, you green-blooded son of a—"

"Who are you?" Kirk demanded, edging closer. A quick glance at his first officer was enough to convey his intention, and Spock cautiously took up position beside him so that they would pin the intruders against the bulkhead in only a few more steps.

"Jim, listen to me," McCoy said quickly, holding up a hand as if to stop Kirk.

Kirk hesitated for just a moment as every hair on the back of his neck stood on end, because it really did sound like his friend. A squad of red-shirted officers rounded the curve of the corridor, sprinting towards them with phasers drawn. A bright flash of light forced his eyes closed, one arm rising instinctively to shield his face, and by the time he could see again the intruders had vanished. The security detail skidded to a halt beside their captain, looking around in confusion.

"I want this entire ship searched," Kirk snapped. "The intruders look like Spock and McCoy."

The officers immediately fanned out and disappeared in opposite directions.

Kirk's fist thumped the com again. "Security – this is the captain. I want a complete visual search of the ship." He looked up reflexively as a shudder rippled through the deck. "You're looking for two intruders that have taken the appearance of Spock and McCoy." He didn't wait for a reply, but thumbed the channel closed as Uhura's voice called the captain to the bridge over the shipwide intercom. Kirk bolted for the nearest turbolift, Spock right at his heels.

"Be careful what you wish for!" McCoy shouted after them, casting a gloating little smile of triumph at Spock before turning the other way to head for sickbay.

Kirk scowled back at him as the doors slid closed, and the expression had not improved by the time they opened again. He burst out of the lift, sensing rather than seeing Spock split off in the direction of the science station. Kirk headed directly for the command chair, casting a swift glance around the bridge on the way until he found Scotty bent over the engineering console. "Report!"

"A Romulan ship decloaked right in front of us," Scotty said quickly, straightening to look over at him. "We barely had time to even register its presence when the other one decloaked and they started firing at each other right over our head. I ordered shields and all stop."

"At… each other?" Kirk asked with disbelief, pausing in the act of sitting, before dropping into his chair and looking at the viewscreen. Angry red bolts of light flared against the shields of two birds of prey, one much larger than the other, as they swept past each other. The Enterprise shivered again in the wake of the pulse as Kirk twisted in the chair to look over his shoulder.

Blue light glowed up at Spock as the Vulcan turned a small dial on the side of his scanner. "Confirmed, Captain. The two Romulan ships are firing at each other. The smaller is an antiquated scout class vessel, the other appears to be a warbird that is not currently in our database." Spock glanced over his shoulder for emphasis. "A new model. The scout class ship is extremely outgunned, and has already sustained heavy damage."

"Message coming in, sir," Uhura called from her station. "From the smaller ship."

"On screen," Kirk said, looking back at the main viewer.

Uhura suddenly began running her slender hands quickly over the console. "The warbird is flooding the area with subspace static, trying to jam the frequency. All I can get is audio." She put it on the speakers without being ordered, and the entire bridge winced at the shriek of subspace that blasted at them.

A strident voice could just be heard faintly in the background squeals and clicks, constantly interrupted by bursts of static. "Kirk! We are — you must — amnesty!"

"Someone tell me I heard that wrong," Kirk said.

"The scout ship's engines are venting plasma, Captain," Spock called from his station. "The warp core will breach in less than thirty seconds."

"Lower shields," Kirk said quickly, stabbing at a button on the arm of his chair as Sulu called out an affirmative. "Transporter room – beam over anything living you can find on the damaged ship. Focus on the bridge." He looked back at the viewscreen anxiously, watching as the warbird veered away from the green nimbus of gas spreading from its mortally wounded prey.

"Captain," Lieutenant Kyle's voice said from the speaker on Kirk's panel, "there's just too much radiation to get a lock on anything."

"Keep trying," the captain ordered, watching the viewscreen tensely. "Spock, let me know the instant that warbird targets us." So far, the enemy seemed to be completely ignoring them, focusing all of its attentions on the scout ship. Why it had not yet gone after the Enterprise was beyond Kirk – the scout ship was as good as dead. It looked to him like it was putting just enough distance between the two to avoid taking damage when it exploded, but no farther. "How long until the warp core goes?"

"Sixteen seconds," Spock said, and Kirk clenched a fist in frustration. A few seconds more was all he could spare for the scout ship before he would have to raise his shields again; they were far too close to the blast radius.

"The warbird is scanning the scout ship," Spock reported.

"A rescue attempt?" Kirk asked, surprised.

"It would appear so," Spock said slowly, but the faint hint of doubt in his voice made Kirk's hands tense on the arms of his chair. "However, there does not — Captain!" Spock interrupted himself and jumped to his feet. In the same instant, the unmistakable shimmer of transporter energies lit up the center of the bridge, briefly reflecting in Kirk's startled eyes before training kicked in. Kirk vaulted over the side of the command chair before the process could complete. "Shields up!" he shouted even as he hit the deck, rolling until he caught up against the step that supported the rail circling the upper portion of the bridge.

Something small and silver solidified in mid-air, and promptly succumbed to gravity.

The Enterprise rocked to a massive blow, tilting wildly as a cacophony of alarms began wailing. The silver ball hit the carpet as Kirk struggled to get to his knees, and he decided that it would have gone off by now if it was a bomb. He snatched at it as it rolled past him.

"The scout wessel has exploded," Chekov reported from the front of the bridge.

"Damage report!" Kirk barked at his crew in general, but looked up at Spock. His first officer was leaning over the rail, one hand wrapped around the red metal, to regard him with imperturbable calm that directly belied his earlier moment of alarm. "What happened?"

"Shields compromised," Scotty said from the engineering station. "We didna get 'em up in time."

"Get those shields up!" Kirk ordered.

"Aye, sir," the engineer said and rushed for the turbolift.

"The scout vessel put everything it had left into beaming that over through the radiation," Spock replied, pointing at the silver ball Kirk was holding. "It accelerated the decay of the magnetic bottle and instantly collapsed the warp containment field."

"Did we get anyone?" Kirk asked, picking himself up off the deck.

Spock checked his console, but Kirk knew what the answer was before he turned back to him. "Negative, sir."

"Romulan varbird is scanning the wreckage," Chekov called.

Kirk looked down at the thing cupped in his palm. It resembled a large, heavy bracelet made of a silvery metal that glittered like gold. Intricate swirls were etched over every centimeter of the inside surface. A complex array of writing glowed from a display on the outside curve, in an utterly alien script, surrounded by a series of slightly indented keypads. They were well into Federation space, nowhere near the Romulan border, and the voice in the static had called him by name. That scout vessel had come _specifically_ for the Enterprise, and had died to get whatever this was into his hands. "They came for _me_, Spock…" Kirk said, his brows furrowing in remorse. He wasn't particularly fond of the Romulan Star Empire, but he did respect them. He hadn't managed to save a single one. "They could have sent a person over…"

"Sickbay reports seven casualties, no fatalities," Uhura announced.

"Evidently, they considered that to be more important," Spock said.

"Romulan varbird is turning towards us!" Chekov said, his voice rising to a shout. "Powering disruptors!"

"Find out what this is, what makes it so important," Kirk said, tossing the device up to Spock and turning away as the Vulcan plucked it from the air. "Evasive maneuvers, Mister Sulu!"


	2. Chapter 2

The Enterprise listed suddenly to one side just as Kirk was getting back to his seat, and the captain grabbed at the back of the command chair for balance. A tremor rippled through the metal of the ship's hull, signifying another near miss. Without shields, even one hit would do massive damage. Kirk managed to get into the chair and planted his feet firmly on the deck as the ship jerked in the opposite direction, Sulu's evasive maneuvers too swift for the inertial dampeners to keep up.

Kirk stabbed at his control panel. "Where are my shields?"

"Captain," Scott said a moment later, sounding out of breath and frantic. "I'll have shields for ye in just a second, but the entire port side of the ship took a big hit from that explosion – there's no way they're goin' ta be repaired in anythin' less than an hour. I can either give you full shields on starboard, or extend them to cover the gap with only half power overall."

"Acknowledged," Kirk said shortly, flipping the toggle with a frustrated flick of his wrist. "Spread out the shields, Mister Chekov, as soon as we have them," he ordered, gripping the arms of his chair as his ship veered sharply again to avoid another volley. Half strength shields would not protect them very well, and they would deteriorate much quicker under fire. Talking was their best option. "Hail the warbird."

"Hailing frequencies open, Captain," Uhura said a moment later.

"This is Captain James T. Kirk, of the Starship Enterprise," Kirk said angrily. "Firing upon this ship constitutes an act of war – not to mention being this far into Federation space!"

A moment passed in which Sulu jerked the ship hard to starboard, and then Uhura said, "No response, Captain."

Kirk clenched his jaw in anger. "Arm phasers and photon torpedos – fire when ready."

"Firing," Chekov said almost instantly, having already had his hand hovering over the weapons controls, followed shortly by the electronic thrum of energy building up and being released.

"Direct hit," Sulu reported, "Their shields are down to ninety four percent."

"Our shields are back up!" Chekov declared with an excited shout. Startled yelps rang out across the bridge as the Enterprise dropped straight downwards at inconceivable speed. The dampeners caught up a moment later, but the ship was already veering to port. "Firing," Chekov said again.

One part of Kirk's mind kept track of the updates while he looked over his shoulder at the science station. "What have you got on that thing, Spock?"

His first officer had the device in one hand, while working his console with the other. How he remained in his seat was a mystery to Kirk. "It is resisting all attempts to scan it, Captain," Spock said. Kirk gave a frustrated growl, but Spock added, "However, I believe it is the same device – or one identical to it – that we saw the intruder wearing." Spock looked at him from across the bridge and raised one eyebrow. "Additionally, sensors detect a heavy concentration of chroniton particles on deck six."

"You mean that really was you and McCoy… from the future," Kirk said in disbelief. Spock hesitated, reluctant to corroborate the statement with so little real evidence to support it, but Kirk chose to take his silence as agreement. "Open frequencies again," Kirk ordered, turning back to the viewscreen with a determined gleam in his eye.

"Hailing frequencies open," Uhura confirmed.

"We have what you're after, and we know it's a time travel device," Kirk said. He kept the look of utter confidence on his face and in his voice, but inwardly prayed his gamble was the right one.

"Incoming transmission," Uhura said with a touch of smugness, and Kirk let a feral grin spread across his face.

A glowering Romulan filled the viewscreen, the bridge behind him lit in shadowy greens and golds. "Kirk," the Romulan sneered. "I should have known those traitorous vermin would come to _you_! Prepare to die, as they died!"

"If you destroy us," Kirk said calmly, trying to sound reasonable, "you will also destroy the device."

The Romulan laughed, a grating sound of mockery. "It cannot _be_ destroyed!" Kirk kept the confident smile on his face even as his insides turned to ice at losing his only bargaining chip. The Romulan raised a hand, clenching it into a tight fist. "I will crush your ship and sift through the rubble!"

Still… impatient types prone to bragging did have their weaknesses. "Not if we figure out how to make it work," Kirk said, and watched with satisfaction as the gloating expression on the Romulan's face froze. Kirk made a quick chopping gesture, and Uhura cut the channel. Kirk pressed a control on his panel. "Scotty, I need you to send up a portable containment field generator, quickly," he ordered. Someone other than his chief engineer acknowledged the order, but that was good enough for him. He contacted security next, and ordered a full detail sent to the bridge. Kirk got out of his seat and crossed to the science station, stumbling a couple steps as the Enterprise rocked to another hit and braced himself against the rail behind Spock.

His first officer looked at him, a calm pool in the midst of a raging sea. "That last communication is likely to encourage them to destroy us all the faster," Spock commented too quietly for the others to hear.

Kirk smiled. "Have a little faith in me, Spock," he said, and his smile widened when Spock's eyebrow twitched upwards another notch. Kirk flicked a quick glance at the image of the warbird hot on their tail. "Chekov, I want a point by point count on shield strength, until we get to twenty one percent. The instant we hit twenty percent, switch the shields to full strength on the starboard side – and Sulu, keep the port side away from the Romulans when he does."

"Aye, sir," both chorused.

Kirk nodded at the device in Spock's hand with his chin. "I don't suppose you can figure that thing out?"

Both eyebrows disappeared into Spock's jet black hairline. "This is an extremely complex piece of machinery, Captain," he said. "Given sufficient time, I could—"

"Time is one thing we don't have," Kirk interrupted, grabbing hold of the rail as the ship shuddered again.

"Shields at forty four percent," Chekov announced. "Firing phasers and photon torpedoes."

Kirk looked over as the turbolift hissed open, and six security guards burst out of it. Kirk waved them off to the side, but said, "Stay ready. If we're very lucky, we're going to get boarded any minute now." This statement was greeted with a range of confused expressions, but they did as instructed without question and scattered to cover the bridge. The lift opened again five seconds later and an ensign practically leaped onto the bridge. He had both arms wrapped around a large black box, which he rushed to bring to the captain.

"Thank you, Ensign Sanders," Kirk said as he took the box from the young man. "Return to your post." Some part of his mind noted the ensign's acknowledgement, but then dismissed him as the captain knelt to set the box on the deck at Spock's feet. "Spock," Kirk said, reaching up with one hand. The Vulcan leaned over the rail to hand him the bracelet, his head canted to one side in curiosity.

The Enterprise shuddered. "Thirty three percent. Firing."

Kirk looked back over at the helm. He watched with a rapt sort of attention for a moment, noting that Chekov and Sulu were working in perfect unison. Sulu would dodge, then Chekov would fire, or vice versa. Kirk could detect no pattern to their program so far, and had no idea how they were able to synchronize their actions so seamlessly. He made a mental note to commend them when this was over. "Shut down all weapons – completely cut power to them," Kirk called.

He popped the seals on the container, opening it to reveal a padded interior. He dropped the time bracelet into the compartment, closed and sealed it, and turned the settings to maximum containment. "Let's see them try to beam it out through _that_," Kirk said to himself as he stood. They wouldn't even be able to get a lock on the box itself, because the field it emitted spread for several centimeters all around it. It was designed to transport radioactive or otherwise dangerous materials — and right now, Kirk considered this thing right at the top of his list of the most dangerous things in existence.

"Romulan warbird's shields are down to eighty five percent," Sulu said, his voice terse with strain. "They aren't even trying to dodge us."

"Tventy five percent," Chekov said after they took another hit, a hint of resignation tingeing his voice. "I do not expect they think they need to," he added glumly.

"Their shields won't do them any good if they lower them," Kirk said with a great deal more confidence than he actually felt. Sulu and Chekov both perked up at his tone, and exchanged quick smiles. Kirk headed to the front of the bridge, bracing himself on the helmsman's chair. "Their next hit will drop us below twenty percent," he said, leaning into a turn. "Cut our speed to nothing, as suddenly as you can, and turn our starboard side to them now. Let them hit us."

Sulu obeyed with a grim expression, and the bridge crew were pitched forward as the Enterprise lost all forward momentum and spun sidewise to present her good side to the enemy. The warbird raked their flank with disruptor fire as it overshot them, then quickly veered off to circle back. Chekov shunted all their remaining shielding, and gave his captain a quick nod. "I want you to keep the port side out of their range," Kirk said, gripping the back of Sulu's chair with both hands and glaring at the Romulan ship on the viewscreen. He looked over his shoulder at Spock. "After a couple shots, Spock, I want you to flicker the shields, just long enough to slip a transporter signal through if some one programmed a computer right – but not a disruptor blast. Do it off and on, randomly, until they take the bait."

"Aye, sir," Spock said with a brief nod, and Kirk knew his first officer understood the plan.

Kirk returned to his command chair, seating himself with studied calm. "The instant their shields drop, Mister Chekov, power up phasers."

The two ships circled each other in a silent dance with the stars as a backdrop. The Enterprise looked very much like the desperate prey, weaponless and fending off the warbird with only the last remnants of her failing shields. But even at twenty percent, concentrating their shields on one side greatly prolonged their life expectancy. The Romulan ship tried several times to go around, up, or under them but they were evenly matched in speed, and Kirk knew that his helmsman was the best in the fleet. That warbird would not be able to get around the shield until it fell or Sulu _let_ them. But if Kirk read his Romulans right, this one didn't have the patience to wait for the shield to get pummeled into submission, all the while risking Starfleet's legendary crew figuring out how to use the time device.

Kirk glowered at the viewscreen and watched as twice more the Romulans blasted them with fiery beams of energy. Now for the piece de resistance. "Hail them."

"Hailing frequencies open."

"We wish to discuss terms of surrender," Kirk said, forcing a note of defeat into his voice.

There was no reply, but the Romulan ship stopped firing.

"We are being scanned," Spock warned.

Kirk's mouth twisted in a grim smile. They weren't going to find the time bracelet, and they were going to have to come and get it if they didn't want to wait for the Enterprise to be destroyed. Impatience and overconfidence are a fatal combination, and Kirk knew in his gut that this Romulan commander suffered from both.

Six pillars of light began to form in seemingly random areas of the bridge.

"Fire, Chekov!" Kirk shouted, even as the navigator slapped at his console to bring phasers back online.

The Romulans unexpectedly solidified much faster than Kirk thought was possible, and they had weapons out and firing even before the transporter had completely released them. The closest to the captain turned to where Kirk had directed his command, and raised his weapon at Chekov. Kirk instantly launched himself at the Romulan, and the shot went wide, searing a black streak in the bulkhead. Both crashed into the deck at the foot of the joined helm and navigation console. Chekov hunched down instinctively, but valiantly ignored the threat as he frantically stabbed at his controls. Kirk could feel the pulse of the ship's phasers firing through the deck beneath his back. The Romulan managed to roll, superior strength slamming the captain into the helm, and Kirk's head struck the base of the console with an audible crack.

Sulu reached down and slashed the flat edge of his hand across the back of the intruder's neck while Chekov aimed a kick into his ribs, and the Romulan dropped the disruptor with a grunt of surprise. Sulu delivered another chop to the neck, and the Romulan collapsed. Kirk pushed at the dead weight until it rolled limply off of him. Sulu glanced quickly between the viewscreen and his console, and then held out a hand to help Kirk to his feet. Kirk braced himself on Chekov's console as he fought down a wave of nausea. His navigator said something, but he could not hear it over the rushing in his ears. He tasted blood in his mouth, and felt a warm trickle making its way down the side of his face. The word 'concussion' bounced around inside his skull, but he couldn't remember what that meant.

Kirk had underestimated the Romulan commander, and that miscalculation on his part looked to have already cost the life of at least one of his crewmen. Kirk stared dazedly at a splash of red spreading across the gold of a lieutenant's chest before making himself look away. Uhura was speaking urgently into her mic, and Kirk hoped she was calling for an emergency medical team or at least reinforcements. Several other Starfleet bodies lay sprawled on the deck, and two of the Romulans were down. Weapons fire in such a confined space was almost impossible without risking hitting your own allies, and by this point the remaining four intruders were locked into hand-to-hand combat.

And then it was as if time slowed down. Kirk's blood thrummed in his ears, each pulse like the tick of the clock. A Romulan next to the turbolift dropped one of his security officers with a vicious blow and then turned to stare in shock at the viewscreen behind the captain before casting a horrified look around at his fallen comrades. As if in the slow motion of a dream, Kirk saw the Romulan's eyes settle on the black box at Spock's feet and go wide with recognition. The Vulcan was pinned against his console, one hand wrapped around a Romulan wrist that held a disruptor away from his head and the other trying to pry a hand from around his neck.

Spock would not be able to defend the time bracelet.

"Captain!" Uhura shrieked as the whine of a disruptor cut through the din of combat and Kirk's blind charge across the bridge was abruptly cut short.

An unmistakable cry of pain suddenly lent strength to Spock's arm, and the grip around his neck tightened with bone-crushing force as Spock abruptly released it and instead smashed the heel of his palm into the Romulan's face. The Romulan staggered backwards a step, green blood gushing from his nose, but had no time to make any kind of counter move. Spock surged forward, pinching the join between shoulder and neck and looking away even as the Romulan fell.

Spock's eyes passed over the main viewscreen, where the warbird was breaking up in a series of explosions bursting from one side in a chain reaction of death. Chekov's aim and timing must have been impeccable. The image was sliding off to the side as Sulu turned the ship around to flee from the imminent explosion, but Spock was already looking elsewhere. He found the crumpled form of his captain lying unmoving on the deck not a meter away, blood already beginning to pool beneath him. He caught motion out of the corner of his eye, and turned just in time to see a centurion making a grab for the stasis container.

The first officer was not quite fast enough and the Romulan snatched up the box, clutching it to his chest as momentum carried him forward. Spock reached out a long arm and managed to snag the centurion's uniform as he barreled past, and both went tumbling to the deck. The Romulan kept Spock at bay with one hand while smashing the box into the rail several times with the other. The containment generator was not designed to withstand that much physical force, and split open with an electronic wail.

The Romulan's head jerked instinctively to the side as the turbolift doors hissed open, spilling out a sea of blue. McCoy and a medical team paused for only a moment, taking in the scene, until dividing up to attend to the injured. Spock seized the moment of distraction and lunged for the shattered remains of the container, but the Romulan flung the box and its single item within across the bridge with the strength of desperation. He screamed out a one word command as the battered container struck another Romulan in the back before falling. It completely fell apart when it hit the deck, and the silver bracelet rolled out. The effort, however, cost the Romulan in Spock's grip his consciousness. Spock got to his feet and went after the other Romulan just as he bent to retrieve the bracelet.

"Stop him," Kirk wheezed, clutching at McCoy's tunic and smearing blood all over the fabric. The doctor paused in his work, bent over the captain with a medical kit open on the deck at his side, and looked over to where Kirk was pointing. A Romulan was holding something small and silver, fumbling at the controls. A downed security officer lay at his feet, and everyone except Spock was too busy to notice. Even as he watched, though, the Vulcan was running towards him. Kirk wouldn't be able to see that, though, so McCoy chose to ignore the command in favor of trying to save the captain's life.

Disruptors were nasty weapons, and this one had torn a sizable chunk out of Kirk's shoulder. It was a glancing blow, and half cauterized already, but what made McCoy despise disruptors more than any other energy weapon was what they did to living flesh. He pressed a hypo to Kirk's neck in an effort to stem the inevitable shock, but Kirk struggled to roll onto his belly as if he intended to crawl away. McCoy gave a frustrated growl at his escaping patient and held him down. Something about the urgency of Kirk's determination made him look over at Spock, though.

McCoy was so used to Spock being several times stronger than anyone on the ship that it took him a moment to remember that he and the Romulan were basically the same species. But the Romulan was bigger, as well as a trained warrior, and it looked like the only thing keeping him from getting the upper hand was his efforts to do something to the device he held while avoiding Spock. A well placed kick sent the Vulcan sprawling backwards, and Kirk convulsed under his hands.

The ship rocked suddenly and Chekov let out a whoop of exultation behind him. He supposed something had just blown up, but he had no time to wonder what. He had no time to wonder where all these Romulans had come from, or why Jim was so desperate to keep this particular Romulan from doing whatever it was he wanted to do. The Romulan grinned suddenly, and that could only be a bad thing. Spock tackled him, and the Romulan shouted in anger as the device was knocked from his grasp and sent rolling in McCoy's general direction.

"Stop him!" Kirk gasped again, and shoved blindly at his hip.

McCoy was no fighter, but the panic in Kirk's voice jolted his feet into motion without his brain's permission. The Romulan made a dive for it, bodily hauling Spock with him, but McCoy got to it first. Several hundred pounds of vulcanian muscle landed on top of him, and McCoy tried to curl into a ball. The Romulan elbowed Spock hard in the ribs and shoved McCoy's arm away with bone-breaking force. McCoy tried to twist away, but the device made a small chiming sound as the Romulan got a grip on it.

All three vanished in a bright flare of light.


	3. Chapter 3

McCoy let out a startled yell, slapping frantically at himself, but the lights had gone out and he couldn't see the thousand spiders that were crawling over every square inch of his body. His belly did a flip, the subsequent wave of nausea filling his mouth with saliva as he rolled onto his back with a choked groan. He had exactly one microsecond to blink in confusion at the starry expanse of sky far above before something struck him hard on the shoulder.

The last few minutes instantly flooded into his mind. How could he have forgotten? He must have been hit on the head or something, and was disoriented, and so he ignored the stars, and he also ignored the ice cold street he was laying on and the neon lit buildings he saw on either side as he quickly turned back over to defend himself. The blow must have been by chance, however, because the Romulan was already quite busy dealing with Spock, who was trying to wrest the disruptor away from him. McCoy jerked to one side as he belatedly realized the thing was pointed directly at him. He grabbed at it, trying to pull it free while Spock had him pinned, but the weapon refused to budge from the viselike grip. Instead, the Romulan let out a roar and managed to roll Spock onto the pavement, sending McCoy sprawling backwards in the process.

McCoy quickly got back to his knees, just in time to see the Romulan swing the gun around enough to get a shot. "Spock!" McCoy shouted, but the Vulcan was already twisting in the Romulan's grasp. Cries of alarm rang out, and McCoy jerked his head up to see that there were several vehicles stopped on the road. There was something wrong with them, but his mind skipped over that detail and focused on the people all around them on the sidewalks, illuminated by bright flashing billboards. Most were running away, while a few stood still with indecision. Two began running towards them.

"Stay back!" McCoy ordered, holding up his hand and putting all the force of almost two decades of emergency triage command into his voice.

Both men skidded to a halt, blinking in confusion. "Starfleet?" one of them asked uncertainly, apparently addressing his companion.

McCoy had no idea how there could be any doubt. "Yes," he barked impatiently, but had no more time to argue with them. Spock managed to flip the Romulan, tumbling both of them into McCoy, and the doctor found himself once again flattened to the ground in a mound of kicking arms and legs. There was a lot of shouting going on now, but McCoy ignored it as he swung a fist clumsily at the Romulan's jaw. It was like hitting a brick wall, and he jerked his fist back with a gasp of pain, taking a moment in the midst of the chaos to be mildly insulted that the Romulan didn't even acknowledge him.

McCoy was suddenly pulled away by the collar of his tunic, and several more hands descended into the fray to seize Spock and the Romulan, prying them all apart. It would seem their two would be rescuers had acquired some help, for there was now a small crowd clustered around them, all shouting and trying to break up what they no doubt thought was some sort of bar brawl. The instant he was free of Spock, the Romulan tucked himself into a ball and rolled away from the knot of people. He came up in a defensive crouch, with the device curled protectively against his chest with one hand and the disruptor leveled directly at Spock, who was struggling to disentangle himself from three well meaning heroes.

"He's got a _gun_!" a woman shrieked from near the sidewalk, and then screamed in panic when the Romulan jerked said gun in her direction.

"Hey!" one of the men holding Spock snarled, and the Romulan swung the weapon back around.

The unmistakable, familiar wail of a siren reached them and everyone began to shout louder. More and more people were pouring into the street, trying to see what was going on. The Romulan took an uncertain step backward, looked around in all directions and seemed to realize that he would not be able to take on what was quickly becoming a mob. He scowled at Spock, then turned and ran. McCoy moved to give chase, although he had no clue what he would do if he actually caught him, but the grip on his shirt hadn't let up and he was yanked back. The few who attempted to stop the Romulan changed their mind when the disruptor was shoved in their face, and soon the glittering uniform of the centurion was lost in the night.

McCoy relaxed with a frustrated sigh, and his captor released him with a little shove towards the city security car that had just descended from the sky. McCoy frowned at the symbol emblazoned upon the side of the vehicle, the strobe of its light painting his face in alternating blue and red. Earth? How was that even possible?

"Get back here!" some one shouted, and the doctor stumbled sideways as someone seized his arm and shoved him.

"We must leave – now," Spock said shortly, shouting into his ear over the din of the crowd, and pushed at him again.

"What?" McCoy protested, looking back at the squad car where a uniformed man was getting out. The crowd milled around him in confusion, but apparently the disruptor and the two nerve-pinched bodies collapsed on the ground were enough to convince everyone to let the law take care of the problem now. "They'll be able to catch him faster if we give a report to the—"

"_Now_, Doctor McCoy," Spock repeated with an uncharacteristic urgency that finally caught McCoy's full attention.

Spock gave him another suggestive push, and McCoy broke into a full out run just as the officer called out for them to halt. The crowd worked in their favor this time, for the newest to arrive did not know who to block and served only to aid their escape, giving them a good head start. They ran past several buildings before Spock veered off into a darkened alley. This, naturally, ended in a stone wall. They looked around quickly and Spock pointed at the broken edge of a ladder dangling down from a metal platform above them. McCoy looked up at it with considerable doubt, but Spock turned to him expectantly and raised an eyebrow when McCoy just gave him a blank stare.

"If you would be so kind as to give me a boost, Doctor, I will be able to assist you," Spock said calmly.

"This'll never work," McCoy grumbled, but made a stirrup of his hands. Spock put his foot into it without hesitation, and McCoy grunted as he took the weight. The doctor was shoved into the wall when Spock stepped onto his shoulder with practiced ease and McCoy wondered how often Jim Kirk served as a stepstool in their escapades. A shower of rust rained down on him as Spock grabbed the jagged rung of the broken ladder. He gave it a quick tug just to make certain it did not immediately fail, and then pulled himself up.

"Halt!" the officer shouted again, turning down their alley. His hand phaser was equipped with a flashlight that cast bouncing beams on the walls as he ran towards them, heavy armor-clad boots thudding on the ground. "Hands up!"

McCoy obeyed, raising both arms above his head and plastering a wide smile on his face as he turned around. "Well, howdy, officer," he said, cramming as much southern charm into his voice as he could as he blinked into the bright light being shined in his eyes. The smile slipped just a bit when the officer's helmeted head moved up and down, clearly taking in the doctor's bloodied uniform. "There's a perfectly logical explanation for—" he began, but broke off with a sudden yelp as something seized his hands and yanked him upwards.

"What the—" the officer began, just as surprised, tipping his head back to look upwards.

McCoy's feet instinctively kicked out for purchase and accidentally caught the officer just under the jaw in one of the few places in the armor that was vulnerable. He went down, clutching at his throat. "Sorry!" McCoy called down as he was heaved up another notch, then stared up in shock. Spock had anchored his feet around the lowest rung, and was hangingupside-down like a trapeze artist, pulling him up hand over hand. "Are you out of your damn _mind_?" McCoy hollered, but Spock did not bother to answer.

Below them, the police officer was struggling to get back to his feet, still coughing.

It was more than a little awkward, but McCoy managed to clamber past Spock and grabbed at the ladder as soon as it was within reach. He grimaced at the rough feel of rusted iron against his palm and offered up a silent prayer that it didn't give out under their combined weight. He climbed up onto the platform as Spock swung gracefully back onto the ladder and a moment later they were both looking down at the officer. The poor man was staring up at them, unable to get a clear shot through the metal under their feet, and talking into a small device on his wrist.

"Um, sorry," McCoy said again with an apologetic little wave as Spock turned away. McCoy directed a scowl at the back of his head as he followed, having to break into a jog to catch up to the Vulcan's quick, long-legged stride. "You wanna tell me why the blazes we're running _away_ from the best people to help us catch that Romulan?" he demanded.

The metal grating was connected to a plain concrete wall with a door in it. Beside that was another metal staircase, this one going all the way to the ground on the other side of the building. Spock headed directly for it, speaking as he walked. "We must get out of sight as quickly as possible."

"That's it," McCoy said, planting his feet firmly. "I'm not taking one more step until you tell me what the hell is going on here!"

Spock's head turned slightly so that one pointed ear faced his direction, but he kept moving. "We do not have time, Doctor McCoy. It is imperative that we avoid detection."

"_Make_ time, Spock," McCoy said angrily. He didn't have any knock on the head, he knew that now, and he had no clue what was going on. Now that he had time to actually think, nothing made sense at all. He rubbed his hands over his arms as the chill of the air set in, and he realized his words formed a plume in front of his face.

Spock stopped half way to the ground, and McCoy could tell by the way he stood still and his back straightened that the Vulcan was forcibly calming himself. He took a slow, careful breath, then turned around on the stairs to face him. "I have strong reason to believe that we have traveled through time."

Both of McCoy's eyebrows flew upwards. "Are you serious?" Spock's expression did not change and McCoy quickly added, "How?"

"I believe the device the Romulan had in his possession was a portable machine that allows travel through time, and, it would seem, space." Spock's head tilted to one side as though he could hear something in the distance, but he looked back at McCoy with a perfectly calm expression.

It was a mark of the adventures of the U.S.S. Enterprise and her crew that McCoy was not the least bit phased by this information. Instead, that brief encounter with themselves clicked into place. "Forward or back?" he asked, looking over his shoulder to make sure they weren't being followed before starting down the stairs.

"I do not know," Spock said. "Nor do I know where we have been transported. But I do believe we are out of place in time, and should therefore avoid detection."

"We're on Earth, I know that much," McCoy confirmed as Spock started moving again.

"You are certain?" Spock asked, sparing him a quick glance before looking up and down the sidewalk that the stairs lead to.

"I recognized the markings on that police cruiser," McCoy explained, and didn't bother to add that no matter how many planets he visited, no matter how long he was way from this planet, there was a part of him that just knew when he stood on the surface of Earth.

Spock nodded once, a quick dip of his chin, and chose a direction apparently at random. People bustled by on both sides of the street, and a fair number of hover cars sped past on the road. They earned a few odd looks, but most of the pedestrians ignored them as they walked. McCoy watched the cars for a moment, until he placed the memory. These were the kind that only hovered a few feet above the road. There hadn't been many still around when he was a child, so he supposed they must have gone quite a few years back.

McCoy could hear the sound of sirens in the distance now, and couldn't help worrying if they would be found any second now. Spock was walking so quickly that it was all McCoy could do just to keep up, not that he blamed him, so it caught him by surprise when the Vulcan suddenly stopped moving. McCoy stumbled into his back with a muttered oath, then followed his frozen gaze.

A building towered above them, and upon it was a glowing billboard with illuminated numbers. "October 19, 2233," McCoy read aloud.

"The year the captain was born," Spock said quietly, and McCoy's blood went cold as the realization sank in. Next to that sign was another that declared, 'Welcome to Riverside Iowa'.

"It could be a coincidence…" McCoy said, but he could hear the doubt in his own voice. "I mean, if he was here for Jim, why not seven months earlier?" But he knew in his gut, just _knew_, that the Romulan was here for Jim. He looked at Spock, and saw the Vulcan staring back at him with a carefully controlled, blank expression. "Right," McCoy said. "Do you know the exact address?"

"Negative."

"Okay," McCoy said, looking around quickly until he spotted a terminal across the street. A big city like Atlanta hadn't had any of these old cars still floating about, but it looked like enough of them still existed in Riverside to require the city to maintain real roads. They had to wait for a gap in traffic before crossing. Spock stood guard beside him as he punched in the request, and the computer chirped happily at him before displaying the information on the small screen.

"George Kirk, Starfleet, first officer of the U.S.S. Kelvin," McCoy said, and pointed a finger at the screen. "Is that him?"

Spock leaned over to check the monitor, and nodded. "Affirmative," he answered and watched as McCoy called up a map and keyed in the address listed. "No public transportation goes that far into the countryside," Spock observed from over McCoy's shoulder.

"There are transporter terminals," McCoy suggested.

Spock shook his head, then ducked his chin slightly as a couple walked past them with odd looks. McCoy's bloodied uniform wasn't very noticeable if they stayed to the shadows, but the information kiosk was well lit and clearly picked out their battered appearance in yellow light. "We cannot risk leaving any record of our presence. I could reprogram a terminal to erase any record of our having used it, but it would be a time consuming process." Spock accessed the computer again, asking it for recent quarries of the selected address.

"Damn," McCoy muttered at the glowing blue number two on the screen. "We don't have time."

"We shall have to acquire alternate transportation," Spock said, looking around them quickly.

"Spock," McCoy said, "Anything we do is going to leave _some_ kind of record. You can't do anything these days without some damn computer making a note of it!"

Spock suddenly broke into a run, leaving McCoy to chase after him. There were several vehicles parked in a lot nearby, and McCoy refused to process what his brain was telling him was their only logical alternative.

"No," McCoy gasped in dread as he caught up to Spock, struggling to catch his breath. The Vulcan had already passed several cars, deciding against each for reasons McCoy could not fathom. Raucous laughter and loud music poured out of an open door in the building, and one glance was all it took to tell McCoy it was a bar. "No!" he said again, louder, as Spock selected a car that McCoy suddenly realized had full flight capability. "Spock, we can't do this! Good God, we have no idea how this could change the time stream!"

Spock whirled on him. "Do not presume to remind me about the consequences of altering the timeline, Doctor McCoy," he said harshly.

McCoy snapped his mouth closed and watched as Spock visibly worked to rein in his emotion. It wasn't very often that it showed, but McCoy could understand. "I know, Spock," McCoy said softly. "It took us both months to put Jim back together after Edith. But that's why I _am_ reminding you. One little thing is all it can take to wipe out everything we know."

Spock gave him a hard look. "Our presence has already altered the timeline. The longer we dally, the more likely it is that the Romulan will alter it even more. The death of James T. Kirk in this point in history would have devastating results for Starfleet. We must, therefore, take the risk."

"Just Starfleet?" McCoy asked as Spock turned away from him. The Vulcan paused in the act of opening the door, but then continued without replying.

McCoy sighed as Spock slid into the driver's seat, but didn't argue any further. He was right… they had to take the risk. McCoy leaned down to peer into the cabin as Spock tapped at the controls on the dashboard. The computer made an unhappy noise.

"Have you ever driven one of these?" McCoy asked, looking around to see if anyone was noting their crime.

Spock hesitated briefly. "It cannot be a difficult process," he replied, but McCoy was waving him away before he finished the sentence.

"Forget it, Spock — I'm driving."

Spock looked like he was going to protest, but then obediently got out of the car. He crossed around the front to the other side as McCoy dropped into the bucket seat and fastened the restraints. Thievery was something that had almost vanished with the invention of the replicator, and the machine's computer made no objections as he started up the motor. He punched in their destination and waited just long enough for Spock to close the door before lifting the car into the air and joining the flow of traffic above the city. McCoy tapped his fingers impatiently against the console as they threaded through invisible lines that only the car's sensors could see, but Riverside was not a large city and soon the buildings become lower and lower until they thinned out into residential homes, and then into wide open fields.

"Bring us low to the ground, and turn off the lights," Spock said, scanning the ground below them through the side window as if he might find the Romulan en rout.

"Why?" McCoy asked, even as he did so. The computer disputed both commands with a shrill alarm, flashing a reminder of local laws on its screen, but McCoy flipped the override command with a grunt of annoyance to silence it. Two little red lights flashed in the corner as if in sullen protest, and a third was added when McCoy directed the machine to proceed at maximum speed.

Spock raised an eyebrow. "To conceal our approach," he replied in a tone indicating that it should be obvious.

"Right," McCoy said, and gave a little roll of his eyes. The James Bond thing wasn't his area of expertise, after all. They traveled in silence for a few long moments, but the computer was doing most of the work and McCoy couldn't keep his hands from clenching anxiously in his lap. He started speaking just to distract himself. "Did you ever meet him?" he asked. "Jim's father?"

"Yes," Spock answered. "At the captain's command ceremony. As well as his brother."

"Well, I know Jim's parents were both in Starfleet, and spent a lot off time off world. Maybe we're lucky and they aren't even on Earth," McCoy said. Beside him, Spock blinked as though the thought had not occurred to him. McCoy did not add that the Kirk family seemed to be immune to the sort of luck he was hoping for.

It took them about twenty minutes to get there, which passed in a tense silence. Spock stopped looking out the side window and directed his attention straight forward as they crested a hill. Tall stalks of winter wheat waved in the stiff breeze, surrounding a small farmhouse. Even from a distance, they could see that something was wrong.

"Oh, my god," McCoy said, his eyes going wide in horror.

The soft glow of lights from half the windows contrasted sharply with the bright flames licking hungrily up one corner of the old wooden building.


	4. Chapter 4

As they drew near, the evidence of a fire fight became clear. A black streak marred the siding close to the fire, and it was probably a distruptor blast that had ignited the wood. A quaint porch surrounded the front of the home, as if to outline the smashed door hanging limply by one hinge.

"Please let us not be too late," McCoy prayed as the car set down.

The computer absolutely refused to allow the door to open while the vehicle was in motion, or else McCoy would have already been heading towards the house. As it was, he popped the hatch the instant the door mechanism clicked the lock off. An iron grip fastened around his forearm and yanked him back into the car, and McCoy let out of a woof of surprise as he fell back into the seat. McCoy tried to jerk his arm out of Spock's grasp, but the Vulcan did not release him as he plied the control panel.

"Dammit, Spock, Jim could be dead in there!" McCoy yelled, struggling more.

The grip on his arm tightened at that, but Spock did not let him go. "The limited sensors of this vehicle register one life form, but is unable to distinguish species," Spock said, and McCoy belatedly realized that running full out in the open directly into what was very probably a combat situation would be just plain stupid. "Nothing that resembles an energy weapon is present," he added. McCoy practically fell out of the car when he was suddenly released, and Spock was already sprinting towards the house by the time McCoy regained his footing.

They had no phaser, no tricorder, no medkit – they had absolutely nothing with them, and McCoy's mind played back his prayer over and over in a silent mantra as he ran. It would be his fault if they were too late, he berated himself. He couldn't keep up with Spock, and once again fell behind. A very guilty part of him was grateful that the Vulcan was faster, because he didn't want to see what might be on the other side of the door.

The door fell off of its frame when Spock tried to push it aside, letting out a loud clatter as it struck the porch and fell into the house. Spock cautiously stepped on it as he entered, the broken glass of its window crunching beneath his boot, and looked around the living room of the farmhouse. An antique lamp provided light from one corner, illuminating its mate shattered on the floor. A burned streak still smoked from the back of the couch, which had been pulled away from the wall and used as cover, but there was no current sign of battle.

McCoy staggered up behind him, breathing hard. "Please tell me we're not too late," he panted.

"Depends what you're here for," a voice said from their right, and both of them whipped their heads around. A man stood in the arched doorway that led into the kitchen, training an ancient rifle on them. The weapon would have seemed ludicrous, but for the fact that the wood and metal it was constructive of gleamed with care and there was absolutely no doubt in either Spock's mind or McCoy's that it was perfectly serviceable. "Don't get any ideas. I've already called the authorities," he added.

"Mister Kirk," Spock said calmly, remaining absolutely still as the man flicked a quick glance around the room before entering. Kirk moved sideways around them, keeping his back to the wall so that the open kitchen was no longer behind him. "I assure you that we mean you or your family no harm. Quite the reverse."

"Uh huh," Kirk said, then leaned a bit so that he could look behind the two and through the doorway. The flickering light of the fire was visible now, casting shadows on the porch, and Kirk's face pinched anxiously for an instant before he wiped it away. "We'll just let the police decide that."

"We've come to warn you," McCoy pitched in.

Kirk snorted, the sound so much like their captain that both officers blinked in surprise. "Well, in that case, I'm afraid you _are_ too late."

Spock tilted his head, as if listening to something. "You are not alone here," he said, and McCoy looked at him at the clear note of relief in his voice.

"Just me," Kirk said quickly, drawing their attention back to him. He waved the muzzle of the weapon briefly between them. "Me and my dad's old rifle."

"No, sir," Spock contradicted with a polite tone of respect that seemed to confuse Kirk. Spock suddenly stiffened. "They are in distress."

Kirk's eyes flicked briefly to the kitchen entrance and back. "Won't work, 'cause there's no one else here. So we're just going to wait nice and quiet for the police to get here."

"If the house doesn't burn down first," McCoy said, looking over his shoulder at the porch. The flames were not moving as fast as one would have expected, and McCoy supposed the wood was treated with some kind of fire retardant. Whatever was slowing the fire, however, was producing a _lot_ of smoke which was beginning to creep into the living room.

"Please, sir," Spock said urgently, and took a step towards the kitchen despite the gun. "I entreat you. They are in distress."

McCoy looked at Spock again, his eyes going wide with alarm. That was no deception – Spock was a fraction away from something that the Vulcan would never admit was panic. McCoy cast his eyes frantically around the room, but saw no place where some one could be hiding.

Kirk glared at them, then let out a low curse of frustration. "Hands where I can see them," Kirk ordered as he edged past them back towards the kitchen. Spock and McCoy quickly obeyed, not wanting to do anything at all that would slow him. Kirk beckoned them to follow as he backed up, keeping them in sight except for one brief glance over his shoulder.

The kitchen of the Kirk home was a homey little room, with old fashioned appliances and a solid oak table and matching chairs tucked into one corner. A large rug covered the center of the wooden floor, and it was from this that the sound of frantic pounding could now be heard. Kirk's face grew alarmed, and he quickly backed up until he was standing over it. He knelt, careful to keep the Enterprise officers covered despite his obvious rush, and peeled the edge of the carpet up.

A metal door was set into the floorboards, perfectly flush with the wood around it. Kirk entered a command into the tiny keypad on the door, and a pneumatic hiss of escaping air stirred the wisps of smoke that were just beginning to spread over the floor from the living room. Kirk tried to lift the door, but it was clearly very heavy and not designed to be lifted with one arm. The wail of an infant could be heard through the widening gap, and Spock took one step forward as if to assist. The weapon was instantly snapped upwards again with a warning look from Kirk.

Spock stopped, his face utterly blank, but his hands clenched into fists at his side once before he forced them to relax.

Kirk heaved at the door, pulling it up from behind it so that he could keep one eye on his charges, and it fell open with a thud. Kirk jerked back as a cloud of smoke poured out of the hole in his kitchen floor. The crying of the baby was punctuated by coughing, but no one emerged,

"Let us help, dammit," McCoy said in frustration. Kirk hesitated, and McCoy started forward anyway with a little growl of annoyance. "You're just going to have to shoot me," McCoy snapped angrily as he knelt on the floor. "Now get out of my way." Kirk blinked at him, but didn't shoot and in the next instant Spock was also crouching at the entrance.

A woman with a soot covered face stared up at them from her perch half way up the ladder, brandishing a metal pole with one hand and clutching a rung of the ladder with the other. Thick grey smoke swirled around her, obscuring anything else from sight. The child was nowhere to be seen, but his cries were growing haggard. "It's okay," McCoy said quickly, raising one hand to defend himself when she raised the pole like a club. "We're here to help, I promise."

She narrowed her eyes suspiciously, and then tried to look past him. "George?" she called.

"I'm here," he said and shouldered Spock aside enough to look down into the tunnel. "It's okay, hon."

"The ventilator jammed up and caught fire," she explained quickly, but instead of climbing out she dropped back down and disappeared into the smoke. "Come on, Georgie," she said, and a few moments later a young child, perhaps six years old, was climbing up towards them. The woman was right behind him, carrying a baby while trying to work her way up the ladder. The boy hesitated when he saw Spock and McCoy, but Kirk leaned in to reach out his arm. Georgie grabbed hold, and was lifted out of the tunnel. The woman held up the screaming baby, and McCoy plucked him from her while Spock leaned down to give her a hand up. All three were covered in grime and coughing, but the baby seemed to be in the worst shape.

McCoy hurried past all of them and towards a door at the rear of the kitchen, shoving it open to the backyard.

The woman staggered a step towards them, but a fit of coughing overtook her and she was forced to stop. Spock's grip on her arm was gentle, and seemed more like support than restraint. "I assure you, Mrs. Kirk, that your son is in good hands."

She looked up at him for a moment, but did not spare any breath on words. Spock let her slide out of his grasp when she pulled away, trusting that she would do nothing to hinder McCoy's efforts. Instead, he looked to where George Kirk was trying to pry the elder son from his death grip on the man's right leg. He gave up after a second, and then struggled to close the door on the smoke that was billowing up from the hidden room.

Spock heard, faintly in the distance, the sound of a siren and realized they were almost out of time. Kirk finally managed to free his leg, hoisting the child into his arms as he hurried after the rest of his family. Spock was the last to leave, and hesitated only a moment before scooping up the abandoned rifle on his way out. A large tree grew between the house and a barn, with a picnic table beneath it. McCoy had laid the baby out on this, examining him while his mother stood by watching his every move.

"That's not going to do you any good," Kirk said, and Spock looked away from them. Kirk gestured at the rifle that Spock held loosely in his hand.

Spock lifted the weapon to check it over. It was regrettable that he had occasion to deal with weapons similar to this, so he was not completely unfamiliar with how they functioned. It bore the signs of having been recently fired, but Spock suddenly knew what he would find when he popped open the magazine. The chamber was empty. Spock sighed at having been held at bay by a useless weapon, and looked back to Kirk with a raised eyebrow.

Kirk only shrugged, not looking the lease bit apologetic. "I haven't been able to find any rounds for it in years," he explained. "But my last bullet hit its mark. He tore out of here on a hoverbike, but he won't get very far. Whoever he is. "

"Sir," Spock said, "I cannot tell you the exact circumstances, but you must trust me when I say that you are in danger."

"I hadn't noticed," Kirk said dryly. The boy in his arms squirmed until Kirk set him on the ground, and he ran over to his mother. Spock glanced at them, watching as the three headed towards them, the woman carrying the baby.

"The intruder will return," Spock persisted.

"I'm on leave for the next three days," Kirk said, lifting his chin with stubborn pride. "After that, I'll be back aboard my ship, and they can just try to come after me. I'll be waiting."

"He is not after you," Spock said firmly.

"Who, then?" the woman asked. Spock's eyes dropped to the baby in her arms, taking in the soot covered cheeks and swollen, reddened eyes, before looking up at McCoy.

"He's fine, Spock," McCoy assured him.

"Who?" the woman demanded louder.

Spock met her eyes calmly. "The child," he answered.

Her eyes went wide in surprise, but Kirk just barked out a laugh. "Jimmy?" he scoffed. "You're kidding, right?"

"I wish he was," McCoy said. "But you have to trust us. He's in grave danger, and so are the rest of you. And there's no way you can protect him against this guy; he has to come with us."

"Hey," Kirk scowled at him. "I think I did just fine so far. And now you've both told me to trust you, but I don't have a clue who either of you are," he said angrily. Spock tilted his head again, glancing briefly over his shoulder. He could see no lights yet, but soon the siren would be close enough for even the humans to hear. "I don't know if that getup is some kind of attempt to look Starfleet," Kirk was saying as Spock turned back to him. "But you're both way off. Secondly, there aren't any Vulcans in the service. So you either come clean now, or get off my property. And don't give me any bullshit – this is my _family_ you're talking about."

Spock sighed, his mind flipping through options and discarding them just as quickly. He met Kirk's eyes, and recognized the determination there. Time was short, and the options were few. "We're from the future," Spock said bluntly and ignored McCoy's sudden choked off gasp. "An enemy agent has gone into the past to assassinate your son before he… becomes a problem to them."

Kirk burst into laughter. "And they say Vulcans have no sense of humor!"

"Oh, dear God," McCoy said in alarm, looking around as though he expected all of existence to suddenly evaporate from under his feet. "I can't believe you just told him that!"

Georgie left his mother's side to once again clutch at his father's leg. He pressed his face into the cloth in fear, and Kirk looked back up at Spock. "I appreciate you helping my family, but I think you're both insane," Kirk said, all traces of humor gone.

The woman took a few steps to his side, and rested a hand on his arm. Kirk looked at her in question, but she was staring at Spock. "Tell me that you will protect my son," she said.

Her eyes were the exact same shape, and the same shade of hazel as his captain's. As Spock gazed at her, he came to understand exactly where the legendary perception came from, because it was as though she could see directly into his katra. Even if the thought had occurred to him, Spock could never lie to this woman. He drew himself up straight with pride and dignity. "I swear to you that I will protect the life of James T. Kirk until my last breath."

She stared at him for a moment longer, then blinked as if startled by what she saw there. She swallowed, and shifted the baby from her hip to hand him over.

"Winnie!" Kirk exclaimed in shock, moving to snatch the child from her. Winona Kirk halted him with a simple look, and whatever transpired between them was silent and instant. Kirk breathed out a sigh, and looked away not in defeat, but with the kind of trust in some one else's judgment that was a rare and precious thing to witness.

"Here," McCoy said quickly, and Winona passed the baby to him as Spock once again looked into the distance. Flashing lights were cresting the hilltop, and the siren could now be heard by everyone present. It was difficult to think that so much had transpired in only a few short minutes.

"I didn't actually have time to call the police," Kirk confessed, following Spock's gaze with a confused frown. "I have no idea why they're coming."

Spock looked at him for a moment, but Kirk only shrugged again.

"Well, at least he comes by it honestly," McCoy said with an amused drawl and jiggled the baby against hip. "Don't you?"

"Let me guess, future-man," Kirk said with a sigh. "You stole that car that's sitting on my lawn?"

Spock's silence was apparently answer enough, because Kirk rolled his eyes in resignation. "They have GPS, you know that, right?" He didn't wait for Spock to reply, however, but turned around and headed for the barn with a gesture for everyone to follow. "I could deactivate it if I had enough time, but I don't. This is going to have to do." With that, he heaved the door open on a sideways track.

Lights kicked on at the motion, revealing a small, comfortably worn hovercar on one side of the barn, but Kirk did not lead them to the family vehicle. Instead, he yanked off the beige tarp covering a car-sized lump beside it. "No GPS," he said proudly. "Hardly any electronics at all, and a damn pain to track in the city." The light reflected off of the bright red finish of an extremely antique vehicle, with old style rubber wheels. Tires, Spock believed they were called.

"Oh, George," Winona said with a little sigh, and Spock had to turn away from the expression she graced upon her husband in order to respect their privacy.

"I can't think of a better cause," Kirk said, and leaned forward to actually plant a kiss on the glossy enamel of the hood. He quickly opened the driver's side door, and pulled down the visor. A set of keys dropped into his palm, which he held out to Spock. "I'd like to see her again," Kirk said with a wistful little smile, "But that kind of luck doesn't run in my family."

"Does that explain the bolt hole in your kitchen?" McCoy asked with a little grin, trying to shake off the eerie feeling of Jim's dad echoing his thoughts.

Kirk moved aside so that Spock could get into the driver's seat. "Yeah, well," he said as McCoy crossed to the other side with Jimmy. Kirk opened the door, then leaned down to rotate an actual handle that lowered the glass window as McCoy got in. Kirk closed the door for him and leaned on the frame of the door through the open window. Kirk shrugged. "That's a hold over from my father. The man was convinced the entire family was cursed. That vault down there is lined with several inches of something that I don't even know the name of. Blocks all sensors," he said with a little laugh.

"You'd believe him, too, if you ever took a look at the family history," Winona said, brushing her hand over Georgie's head as he clung to her.

"Your father? Tiberius?" McCoy asked.

Kirk winced. "Yeah. What a name."

"I like it," Winona said with a smile. "It has character."

Kirk sighed. "I know. Sorry, kid, I lost that one," he added and ruffled Jimmy's white-blond hair. He leaned in suddenly and pressed a kiss to the child's temple then darted out with a slap of his hand against the flank of the car. "Get going, we'll distract them as long as we can."

Spock inserted the key and turned it, having had some experience with these types of vehicles as well as the gun. The engine started up with a throaty roar, and he could already smell the burning fossil fuel. He looked one last time to Kirk. "You must get off world as quickly as possible, so that he cannot use you as leverage against us."

Kirk looked like he wanted to protest, but the logic of it was undeniable. "Winnie and Georgie will go to visit a cousin on Luna, but I'm not leaving," he said. Winona opened her mouth to object, but a sharp glance from Kirk silenced her. Kirk turned back to Spock before the Vulcan could offer his own dissent, and waved him off firmly. "I'll hole up with a friend in the city," he said and rattled off an alien name that McCoy knew he would never remember. "Find me when this blows over."

Spock gave a quick nod, out of time. The Kirks moved out of the barn to give the car room to exit, and Spock turned it in the opposite direction once he was out in the open. He slammed his foot on the accelerator, and the old car leaped forward with surprising eagerness for a machine of its age. He kept the headlights off, and looked in the rearview mirror in time to see all three running towards the police cruiser that was landing in their yard. He could hear their cries of alarm and panic even over the sound of the combustion engine, and knew that the authorities would be kept busy long enough for them to slip away.

Spock searched his mind, but the nearest large metallic structure he could think of that was not Riverside itself was the dockyard.


	5. Chapter 5

The problem with rubber wheels, McCoy thought, was that they touched the ground. You might think, being made of a nice soft material like rubber, that they would just kind of smooth things out if you were not on an even surface. The reality of physics proved to be much different. McCoy clutched at the handhold imbedded above the window with one hand and the baby let out a startled yelp when the car's right front wheel dipped lower than its left, then bounced out of the divot in the ground with a mechanical groan of complaining suspension.

McCoy wanted to tell Spock to slow down, to turn on the lights so they could at least see where they were going. He wanted to tell him to get back on the damn __road__, for God's sake. One look at Spock's utterly blank face, however, stilled any comment from the doctor. So instead of saying anything, McCoy continued to take a mental inventory of what they did not have. In addition to not having a phaser, or tricorder, or medkit, they also didn't have any warm clothing for an Iowa fall, nor did they have any food.

And they didn't have the time machine.

McCoy's stomach churned at the thought, and he looked over at Spock's grim expression again. "I don't get it," McCoy said, then clamped his mouth closed as they hurtled over another rough patch of terrain to avoid accidentally biting his own tongue off. "The Romulan has the time whatchamacallit. He's wounded now, and he's lost the element of surprise. Why doesn't he just use the device to go back farther? Do you think it's been damaged?" He hoped not, because then it would be really hard to get home again.

"The Romulan commander seemed fully convinced that the device is indestructible by any force currently known to science," Spock answered. "The alloy from which it is constructed, from the little I could gain from scans, is a phenomenally complex arrangement of molecules that leads me to concur." Spock suddenly jerked the car to the left and back again, but McCoy couldn't see what he was avoiding. His teeth clacked together again as he felt what Spock did not avoid. "It seems more likely that the Romulan was not the original officer intended to use the device, and does not in fact know how."

"Well, he knew enough to get us here," McCoy grumbled.

Spock gave a quick, negative shake of his head. "I have not had time to decipher the readings on the device's screen, but they were exactly the same after we arrived as they were when the captain was in possession of it. I believe the coordinates were already pre-set before it was beamed to the Enterprise, and the only knowledge needed was to activate the device."

"Wait, you mean to tell me you were able to memorize the settings, while you were rolling on the ground fighting for your life?" McCoy blinked in sudden realization and took his hand off of the grip just long enough to wave it as he processed what Spock had said. "Wait, wait, it was beamed over?" McCoy asked. "What the hell happened up there?"

"Please mind your language, Doctor McCoy," Spock said, and the doctor glanced down at the child with an apologetic look of embarrassment. He listened as Spock spent the next few minutes catching him up on what had happened on the bridge.

McCoy mulled over the information. "So… I guess that means the Romulans had definitely planned to go back in time and…" he hesitated, then moved the hand wrapped around the baby to cover one ear while covering the other by gently pressing his head to his shoulder and finished, "take care of their problem?" Jimmy squirmed with a little mew of unhappiness, and McCoy released him. "But some one stopped them. Some kind of mutiny."

Spock nodded. "That would seem a logical extrapolation of events."

"We'll never know who they were," McCoy said quietly.

"They would have needed access to very highly secured information regarding the existence and plans concerning the device," Spock said, "and enough access to steal it. Also, they would have needed enough information to know the exact location of the Enterprise. An operation of this nature would have required several people, and originated relatively high up in the government."

"You think they aimed for the Enterprise specifically?" McCoy asked in surprise.

Spock hesitated. "The captain believed so."

Which meant it was one of Jim's intuitive leaps. McCoy let it go at that, but one more thing didn't make sense. "But why go through all that trouble?" he asked. "I mean, anything can be destroyed by a transporter. Just take it apart, and don't put it back together again." McCoy shuddered at the very thought. "Why bring it all the way to us?"

Spock allowed himself a small sigh. "According to my scans, our technology is not advanced enough to be able to disassemble the intricate structure that makes up the device, let alone assemble it properly. Even allowing for Romulan technology to have advanced significantly faster than the Federation's, which I find unlikely, they should not have been able to send it over. And yet…" Spock paused then, his thumb moving absently over the steering wheel as he tried to find words to describe what he had felt while holding the device. It had tingled in his hand, almost in the manner that touching a living mind felt. Spock toyed with the notion of a computer being so advanced as to actually be self aware. It was not as impossible as it seemed, for Spock had touched the 'mind' of computers in the past. After all, they were not built so differently than an organic mind.

"And yet?" McCoy prompted, with a rolling motion of one hand.

Spock was hesitant to voice his suspicion, because he knew how McCoy would respond. He had long ago lost his reticence about sharing any observation, no matter how poorly supported by fact, with his captain. While Spock had a distinct lack of confidence in his own instincts, he had come to respect the ability of his captain. For now, however, he said, "I believe the device is governed by an astonishingly complex computer, which is able to detect an __attempt __at transport and actually assist in the process."

"What," McCoy said with a disbelieving little snort, "you're saying it transports __itself__ once it realizes it's being disassembled wrong?"

Spock breathed out a very slow sigh. "It is the only logical explanation. Our technology is simply insufficient for the task, and it is obviously capable of moving itself, and anything attached to it, great distances. Furthermore, I suspect that if some one were to dematerialize the device and try to disperse the atoms in an attempt to destroy it, the machine would, in essence, assemble itself."

"Making it indestructible," McCoy said, leaning his head back against the seat. "That's incredible." McCoy could picture the chain of events now, or at least how it could have been. Some one decided to use the device to go back in time and wipe out the one person who had defeated them time and time again since they decided to test the Federation's borders. Some one had disagreed. Their first option would have been to try to destroy it. Once they realized they couldn't, they had trusted one man with possibly the most valuable – and dangerous – piece of equipment likely to be discovered this millennium. And had died marked as a traitor to his own kind for doing so. It seemed like an impossibly huge leap of faith, and it wasn't something McCoy would have expected from a Romulan.

"The Romulan people," Spock said, as if reading his thoughts, "are a noble and proud race. They are fully capable of good as well as evil, and those who hold the highest authority do not always speak for the majority. Not unlike humans," Spock added after a pause, as though the thought was a new one.

McCoy bristled slightly at the comparison, but Jimmy chose that moment to begin crying. McCoy's anger quickly dissolved as he tried to sooth the baby, but there wasn't much he could do. He wasn't in any real danger, just very uncomfortable. McCoy gently pried at his eyes with the tips of his fingers, wiping away accumulated mucus as his body tried to clear the smoke and dust out of his eyes. The tears were actually a good thing, because they would help to clear his eyes all the faster, but McCoy still didn't like it. He pressed his thumb to the open mouth, holding it open so he could peer into his throat. It was only a little red from smoke inhalation, nothing serious, but McCoy heaved a sigh. He wished he had something, anything, to offer him to make it better.

Jimmy was not dressed for outdoor traveling, and was wearing a soft fleecy outfit with short sleeves and no socks or shoes. It looked as if the Kirk family had just been heading to bed when the attack had happened. He noticed the tiny goose bumps rising over every bit of the baby's exposed skin. That, at least, he might be able to do something about. The first thing he had done was roll the window back up to keep the frigid wind out, but he hadn't had time to try to find out if this ancient death trap had any kind of heating unit. It wasn't much, but he should be able to take some of the chill out of the cabin and remove at least one of Jimmy's discomforts. The rifle slid off of his lap when he leaned forward to fiddle with the strange knobs and buttons on the dashboard and McCoy let out a muttered curse when it landed on his foot, managing to make its impact felt even through the sturdy Starfleet issue boot.

"Language," Spock remarked calmly. McCoy spared him a quick scowl of annoyance, but didn't reply. "What are you searching for?" Spock asked.

"Heat," McCoy answered without looking away as he turned a knob labeled with a tiny picture of what looked like moving air, or water. "The kid's freezing." A blast of cold air hit him in the face from a vent, and McCoy jerked back. Jimmy wailed louder, more from fear of the sudden motion than the cold air, and McCoy leaned away slightly. "No damage to the lungs, that's for sure," he said.

A blue sleeve crossed his line of sight and he looked up in time to see Spock turn a dial from blue to red, and adjust another that lessened the force of air to a light breeze. Jimmy's crying stopped as he watched Spock, twisting his neck around as the Vulcan moved away. McCoy lifted one of Jimmy's arms and waved the tiny hand in front of the vent, and the baby turned back to it with an almost comical expression of surprise. He reached for it, and McCoy leaned forward enough so that he could explore the plastic grill with chubby little fingers.

They went over another bump, and McCoy scrambled to grab him before he was knocked off his knee. Jimmy squealed in delight, peels of laughter echoing around the inside of the car. It was an incredibly contagious giggle, and McCoy couldn't help but do the same. "Wow, Jim, you were one heck of a cute kid," he said with a laugh. McCoy looked over at Spock, and caught the first officer of the Enterprise watching them out of the corner of his eye.

"His eyes are blue," Spock said after a moment, but the inflection was somewhere between a statement and a question as if Spock was uncertain about how socially acceptable it was to mention it.

"Yeah," McCoy said. He raised a finger and slowly moved it from side to side in front of Jimmy's face. "That's normal." The baby tracked the moving target well, then grabbed it with another giggle. McCoy allowed him to shove it into his mouth and looked back over at Spock. "They should settle into their final color by the time he's two or three years old, unless something happens to change how much melanin is produced."

"Blue eyes are very rare among Vulcans," Spock commented. "And usually indicate blindness."

McCoy looked back down at Jimmy, reclaiming his wet finger to check his eyes again. "Mine used to be brown," he said absently. Jimmy pulled away in annoyance, and McCoy patted the kid on the head in apology before settling back in his seat. "A few years after I graduated from the academy, I was in an away team that got stranded on a planet after a freak ion storm popped up out of nowhere. The ship couldn't beam us up, couldn't even stay in orbit. By the time they were able to get back to us, most of the color had been bleached from our eyes, skin, and hair. My eyes never bothered to produce any more, so they stayed blue." McCoy shrugged. "I don't mind though, 'cause it could have been worse. One poor guy ended up albino, with red eyes to this day."

Spock glanced at him with a raised eyebrow, but then turned away without comment. It should be completely immaterial, yet Spock had as much difficulty picturing his captain with blue eyes as he did envisioning McCoy with brown. He blinked, forcing his mind to stop dwelling on the completely illogical subject. A glow in the distance marked the Riverside Shipyard, bright rays shining upward into the night sky like a beacon, and it was this that he focused his attention upon instead.

Spock was not certain how persistent Earth police would be in chasing them down, but the shipyard would be a large enough metallic structure to mask the car from casual detection. The stolen hovercar had been recovered, and no one had been injured in the original disturbance, so Spock found it unlikely that they would expend any great effort. He did not believe Kirk would reveal the confidential nature of their presence in the past.

The Romulan, on the other hand, had no choice but to be persistent. It was not difficult to obtain food, shelter, or medical care on Earth, for they were provided to all regardless of an individual's contribution to society. One could not obtain these things, however, without having an ID on file. The Romulan could force a local to assist him, but Spock thought it unlikely. At this point in history, the Federation knew nothing of the Romulan Star Empire, not even what the race looked like. He could conceivably pass himself off as a Vulcan, but it would be extremely unwise for the Romulan to risk exposing himself to capture. This left the Romulan in a very untenable situation.

Confrontation was inevitable. Spock's plan for now, however, was to find some place at the shipyard to hide both McCoy and the child, and then return to Riverside as quickly as possible. Perhaps he could reason with the centurion when he found him, but it was doubtful. Spock's hands tightened on the steering wheel and his mouth thinned into a grim line because he knew what he was going to have to do. He glanced at McCoy and watched as he played with the child. It was better, Spock knew, for the doctor to stay with the child and not witness what had to happen.

Spock's gaze lingered on the baby for a moment, and the child turned to look at him with a toothless grin. Yes… he would do what he must.

By the time they drew near the shipyard, the beacon of light had turned into a small city of its own and blotted out the stars with its brightness. The skeletal frame of a ship was currently under construction, lit from all sides and below by bright beams. Spock knew this shipyard was new, and this would be the first ship to be built here. It was actually an historic occasion, to be able to see this, and a small, very human part of Spock felt privileged. Something like awe settled into his belly, curling there in an unsettling manner yet somehow also with a sensation of anticipation. During all his time serving with James T. Kirk, it had never occurred to the Vulcan what a massive coincidence it was that Starfleet's most decorated captain would grow up in the same city that would also be the birthplace of his beloved Enterprise.

"It's destiny, Spock," McCoy said, and Spock blinked in surprise at having his thoughts echoed. "See that, kiddo?" the doctor continued, turning the baby around and lifting him so that he could see through the windshield as they pulled up to the wire fence surrounding the facility. "You're gonna have one of those some day. Not that one, but one way better."

The blues and golds of the huge lamps that lit the shipyard shined in the baby's eyes, which had gone wide as if he knew exactly what McCoy's words meant.

Spock drove the car down the narrow road that paralleled the simple chain linked fence until it led to a gate. Security did not seem to be much of an issue, for there was no one guarding it, and Spock left the car idling while he got out and swung it wide open on well oiled hinges. He pulled the car through, then got out again to close it.

"Isn't that a little odd?" McCoy asked, looking over his shoulder and through the rear window as Spock drove the car deeper into the shipyard.

"Unknown," Spock said. "I am unfamiliar with security practices at this time in history."

"Well neither am I, Spock," McCoy said testily, wrapping both arms around the baby in an unconscious gesture of protection. "But it's giving me the creeps."

Spock had nothing to say in response to that observation, although a part of him did think it was unlikely that the entrance would be left completely unattended. No one stopped them, however, as he wound the car through huge pieces of hull and piles of metal until they came across a pyramid of containers stacked atop each other. Each was larger than several shuttlecraft welded together, and there were a few gaps at the bottom of the pile that were big enough to offer shelter.

"This should be a sufficient hiding place," Spock said.

McCoy stared blankly at him until realization dawned. "You want us to get __out__? And do what - just wait here?"

"Affirmative," Spock said calmly.

"You've lost your mind," McCoy said flatly. "That thingamajig musta scrambled your brain, 'cause there is no way—"

"Doctor McCoy," Spock said with a patient sigh. "The best course of action at this time would be to locate the Romulan before he locates us. I do not believe a combat situation is appropriate for a child."

McCoy fidgeted uncomfortably. "Neither do I, but…"

"There is no alternative," Spock persisted. "We must split up, to lessen the risk to the—"

"All right, fine!" McCoy snapped angrily. "But not before I get some kind of supplies."

Spock raised an eyebrow. "How do you propose to do that?"

McCoy looked around, and then pointed in the general direction of a cluster of buildings across the shipyard. "This place is big enough to have its own dormitories and service facilities," McCoy said. "I can requisition just about anything I need, as long as no one notices me."

Spock gave it a moment's thought, and then reluctantly shifted the antiquated gear system into reverse and maneuvered the car into a gap. The shadows slid over the hood as he backed it up, and he shut off the engine after another hesitant moment of thought. He had serious doubts about McCoy's stealth abilities.

"You can't go," McCoy said when Spock started to open the door. "Children don't get ID cards until they're six years old, so yours doesn't exist yet," McCoy said, picking up the child and depositing him unceremoniously into Spock's lap.

The child blinked in confusion at this sudden displacement, and Spock's hands moved to grab him as he wobbled precariously. He forcefully shoved down a sudden sense of alarm at the idea of being left alone with this child. "Doctor McCoy," Spock began, knowing even as he spoke that his attempt at concealing his apprehension was less than effective.

McCoy opened the door and got out, leaning into the car for a moment to grin at Spock with entirely inappropriate glee. "Sorry, Spock, it's the only logical course of action. You're just gonna have to babysit until I get back." And with that, McCoy closed the door and disappeared into the shadows.

Spock swallowed, and looked down at the child to find bright blue eyes staring solemnly back up at him.


	6. Chapter 6

Spock of Vulcan was the son of Sarek, a venerated diplomat and Vulcan's ambassador to Earth. Spock of Vulcan was a renowned scientist, the first ever to turn down a place in the Vulcan Science Academy. Spock of Vulcan was the first Vulcan to attend Starfleet Academy, and was now second in command of the United Federation of Planet's prized flagship. Among his many achievements, he was credited (highly classified, but nonetheless credited) with discovering the mathematical computations to allow a ship to slingshot through __time__ itself. The name Spock went hand in hand with the name James. T. Kirk, Starfleet's most celebrated captain to date. For all of these things that Spock of Vulcan was, however, there were just as many things that he was not.

Spock was not comfortable around children.

There was silence for a moment as Spock stared down at his future captain. Both of Spock's hands hovered awkwardly on either side of the baby, but the rest of his body was locked in a rigid state of uselessness. Spock watched as the child smudged the soot on his face even more by rubbing at his eyes. He then began to cry. Spock realized, on an intellectual level, that this was essentially the only way a human child had of communicating unhappiness or pain and was therefore perfectly normal under the current circumstances. Nevertheless, the sound instantly filled him with a nameless fear that he was unable to completely suppress. Exacerbating this illogical emotion was another equally as illogical: this was not just any child.

Spock had faced Klingons in battle, encountered beings so alien that their mere appearance caused madness, confronted godlike beings with the power to smite him with only a thought. All of these things Spock had done while maintaining his calm Vulcan demeanor. Logically, a wailing infant in his lap that expected him to make things better could not possibly be any worse than those things. Logically.

Spock took a slow, deep breath and forced his mind into calm. He looked around the cabin, searching for anything he might use to wipe the grime off of the child's face. The interior was immaculate, however, and there was nothing. His eyes fell on a handle set in the center of a square outline in the dashboard. The door popped open with a click and a small bulb lit the compartment with a soft glow. A momentary qualm stilled Spock's hand, but the Vulcan brushed it aside as he reassured himself that George Kirk would not object to this invasion of privacy for the sake of his son. There wasn't much to be seen, though. Spock turned a small bottle over so that he could read the label, and saw that it appeared to be some kind of metal polish. Further investigation revealed more items designed for the care and maintenance of the vehicle. Spock brushed his fingers over a folded square of cloth that was presumably meant to be used in applying the polish. It was soft to the touch, and a careful sniff did not indicate the overt presence of any chemicals. It was far cleaner than the sleeve of Spock's tunic, which was the only alternative.

The baby tried to squirm away from him, but he held him still with one hand while he applied the cloth to his face with careful methodology. Without some sort of liquid to aid the process, there wasn't a great deal that Spock could do. If McCoy's mission was successful, they would be able to do a proper job of it when he returned. The worst of the grime had been scrubbed away for now, and Spock regarded his handiwork with a sigh. "You are still filthy," he told the child.

Although the crying had stopped, the child's unhappy expression seemed to agree with him.

McCoy had no difficulty adopting the childhood name, but Spock found it problematic to think of this individual as Jimmy. He certainly could not call him Captain, however, or even Kirk. And somehow, Jim was… Jim was the only person outside his own family that Spock ever called by any personal name. It did not seem fitting to use now, nor did granting even more familiarity to the name seem appropriate.

While Spock pondered this dilemma, the child reached for the vent on the dashboard and pushed at it with his hand. He turned back to scowl up at him and the corner of Spock's mouth twitched just once before he halted it, for the expression bore a remarkable, if greatly exaggerated, resemblance to his captain's when in a particularly foul mood. The child did have a valid point, however. The temperature had dropped considerably in the short time that McCoy had been gone.

The city was the most likely destination for the Romulan, once he realized the Kirk family had fled, but Spock was not certain if there was enough fuel to get there. Nor did Spock have any idea as to where George Kirk acquired the crude fossil fuels the antiquated vehicle burned. It would be unwise to restart the engine until absolutely necessary. Spock trusted that McCoy would have no doubt considered the weather when making his list of supplies, and they had only to wait for his return.

A siren suddenly went off, and the child began to fuss again as Spock tensed with alertness. Spock peered out through the windshield, scanning the row of well-lit buildings at the far side of the shipyard for any sign of the doctor. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary in that direction, but there was quite a bit of commotion near the main entrance to the facility. Spock could see little from this vantage point, but the safest conclusion would be to assume that their presence had been discovered. Spock's mouth compressed into a slight frown as he silently berated himself for allowing the doctor to leave the vehicle. He should have simply left them both here, as he had originally planned. It would have been preferable that the two humans remain together, even if captured, while Spock searched for the Romulan. Earth authorities would not harm them, and they would be more difficult for the Romulan to get to.

Logic dictated that Spock had two viable options: attempt to escape or hide and wait for the alert to pass.

Either way, Spock would not get very far with a squalling infant. "Jim," he said, and sighed when the child did not acknowledge the name. "Jimmy," he tried again, and this time got a tearful glower. "You must remain quiet," Spock informed him, but this only prompted Jimmy to begin crying again – and with greater volume. Spock could hear voices shouting in the distance, but could not make out the words. Time was short. Escape was less likely at this point and the car would undoubtedly need to be abandoned afterwards, for it was far too recognizable. That would make getting to Riverside very difficult. Despite the risk to the timeline, being caught by the shipyard workers was preferable to exposing the child to a trek on foot back to the city. Spock was also reluctant to abandon McCoy.

The containers towering above their hiding place, and on either side, were filled with the dense metal that comprised a starship's hull. The car had little in the way of technology, and would register on any scans of the shipyard as a lump of metal. Spock glanced down at the crying child, and thought it likely that his small life signs would not register. Spock's alien biology, however, almost certainly would. Spock could lower his biorhythms to negligible levels, but that would severely limit his ability to attend to Jimmy. Spock breathed out another slow sigh of resignation.

The baby fretfully tried to push his hand away as Spock spread his fingers over his small skull. There was a time when Spock would have needed to suppress a sense of guilt at the intrusion, and then a time when he would have needed to suppress guilt for not feeling guilty, but now it simply was. James T. Kirk had granted him permission long ago, and Spock believed that permission applied even now. He used the lightest of touches, slipping carefully into the delicate, still-forming mind of the baby.

A consensual mind meld was not an unpleasant experience for most Vulcans, and Spock had come to learn that it was more than pleasant to a human. The baby's large blue eyes blinked once in surprise, and then slid closed. Hurts. Cold. Frightened. Tired. Spock soothed away the mental impressions he encountered with a gentle brush of his mind and focused on the last one. Jimmy heaved a weary sigh before slumping against Spock's chest, sound asleep.

The entire front row of the car consisted of one bench-like seat that did not seem to have a mechanism for inclining. Spock could not guarantee that the child would remain in place if he was sitting upright, so he pulled his feet up onto the bench, knees bent to provide a cradle for the child, and scooted sideways until he was leaning against the closed door of the car. He situated himself as comfortably as he was able, and positioned Jimmy on his chest at an angle against the back of the seat so that he would not roll off.

Spock took a deep breath and let it out slowly, lowering his metabolism as he did so. He unfolded the cloth he had used earlier and draped it over Jimmy like a blanket, tucking the edges in around his body. A small heel dug into Spock's stomach as Jimmy turned slightly in his sleep to bring one hand to his face so that he could suck on his thumb, and his other hand curled into a tiny fist-full of Spock's tunic. Spock could not name the emotion that stirred within him at the sight. The tips of Spock's fingers brushed along Jimmy's temple, pushing him into a deeper sleep, before passing through the downy soft hair and tracing over the round curve of the tiny ear. His hand came to rest on the baby's back, to offer what little warmth he could as well as to make certain he would be aware should the child move too much.

Spock breathed out again slowly, noting that his breath left a faint trail of vapor in the dim light filtering in through the windshield. The next breath did not. His eyes were open, and he would most likely notice a sudden movement or sound, but that was all he could manage at this biometric level. He was reasonably certain, though, that neither of them would register on the kind of scanners that were available to shipyards in this year, and the facility was large enough to make a visual inspection at night impractical. He knew that McCoy would not give away their position, and might even convince them that he was working alone. Spock had only to wait until the commotion died down.

As it turned out, McCoy was not, in fact, responsible for setting off the shipyard's alarms.

Even as Spock's body temperature dropped to dangerously hypothermic levels, the doctor shoved a door open and slipped into a darkened office. It was an old fashioned thing, with a doorknob and a small window carved in the upper half. He tried to be quiet, but winced when it made a loud click as he closed it. McCoy quickly crouched below the window and a blur of motion blocked out the light filtering through the glass. After a moment, McCoy dared a peek over the edge and caught sight of the back of a man just before he hurried around a corner at the end of the hall. McCoy gave a tiny, relieved salute to the flashing red light above the door, for the alarm blaring from its speaker had saved his skin.

He shifted the wide strap of his bag across his shoulder, settling it more comfortably across his back, but crouched down again just as he touched the doorknob. Two more men had turned down the corridor. McCoy pressed against the door, trying to make himself as small as possible as the beam of a flashlight lit up a standard issue office desk and furnishings. Then the light and the men vanished, and McCoy started breathing again. McCoy gave himself a jaded scowl when he realized his first thought was that Jim Kirk would have flayed those two alive for such a sloppy search. He leaned against the door in relief, and reminded himself that it'd been nearly three quarters of a century since the Romulan War. They'd never gotten along with the Klingons, but there wasn't out an out war either. This was just a shipyard, on Earth itself, deep in the heart of Federation territory.

McCoy shook his head, grateful for the naivety of Earth at this point in history. In his time, shipyards were considered a prime target for sabotage. He waited a moment to see if anyone else was coming, then ducked out into the corridor. McCoy knew he hadn't tripped any alarms – if the shipyard's supply replicator had objected to his requests, the alert would have been sounded long before now. As it was, McCoy was so close to the exit that he was out within a few seconds. The well lit walkways of the shipyard quickly gave way to the dim, shadowed mounds of construction materials. He waited there for a few minutes, making certain that he hadn't been followed, before heading deeper into the darkness. The alarm shut off when he was about half way there, and McCoy had no idea if that was good or bad.

He tried to ignore the cold lump settling in his belly, fearing what he would find when he got back to the car. Because __something__ had set off the alarm, and if it wasn't him then that really only left one logical cause. McCoy made a sour face at his own choice of mental words. That damned Vulcan was starting to rub off on him. This had been a stupid plan from the beginning anyway, and McCoy knew he should have just insisted on staying in the car until he found some way of changing Spock's mind. Separating was always a bad idea. McCoy continued to build up his irritation at Spock as he jogged through the darkness, because it was the only thing keeping his insides from turning inside out with worry.

McCoy fully expected to find their hiding place crawling with security, and he had no idea what he was going to do about it. As he drew closer, however, his churning thoughts slowed in confusion. There was nothing, no security, no lights. He could just barely make out the shape of the car in the shadowed hollow of its hiding place, but only because he knew what he was looking for. It was eerily silent and still. McCoy looked around, wondering if it was some kind of trap. In the end, he decided that he didn't have much of a choice. He crept up to the side of the car, but nothing happened. Slowly, carefully, McCoy rose from his crouch to look through the window.

He would never let Spock live it down.


	7. Chapter 7

Spock struggled to awareness at the sound of the door opening and he had time to blink once in surprise before a duffle bag sailed into the car and landed at his feet. The car dipped as McCoy followed, blowing into his hands to warm them. The doctor swore under his breath when the door made a metallic squeal as he swung it closed, but the wide grin on his face instantly returned when he looked over at Spock.

"I do declare, Mister Spock, that's the _cutest_ damned thing I have ever seen," McCoy said, and shoved his hands into his armpits.

Spock remained unmoving, instead choosing to concentrate on raising his metabolic rate. The cold had left his mind somewhat sluggish, for, although he was relieved that McCoy had apparently come to no harm, he had no idea what the doctor was so pleased about.

"A true moment for posterity, and here I am without any kind of camera," McCoy continued, freeing one hand just long enough to point at him. "A downright shame."

Spock followed the line of his finger and managed to slowly tilt his head downward. The baby was as he'd left him, safely resting. It occurred to Spock how the two of them might appear, but he was no longer able to devote any attention to that. Even though Vulcans were a desert-bred species, they possessed an inherent hardiness that generally allowed them to fare better than humans in harsh climates. For a short time. Humans, Spock privately admitted, had a greater ability for long term adaptation. Even so, the current temperature was well within his normal tolerances, and it should not have been this difficult to raise his metabolic rate.

"Spock?" McCoy asked, the amusement in his voice tinged with uncertainty.

Spock's jaw muscles would not respond. Most of what the doctor said next was a series of curses and insults, and Spock would have heaved a sigh if he could have. McCoy scooped up the baby and Spock had a moment of anxiety that the child had also grown too cold. He should have been fine for a while, but Spock had lost track of time. His concern was quickly alleviated, however. He had not put the baby into a trance, merely a deep sleep, and the sudden movement was enough to wake him.

Jimmy was not pleased, and informed the doctor so in no uncertain terms.

McCoy made a brief attempt to hush him, tossing a frantic look out the window. Then he rushed to get the bag open and rummaged inside until he found a foil-wrapped package. He tore it open and held it out to the child. "Here ya go, kiddo," he said, and waved the bar under his nose.

Jimmy sniffled, but took the offering and focused on that instead.

"That sweet tooth is gonna get you in trouble," McCoy warned, and moved the child to the floor. "You'll be okay for a minute."

Spock's legs were still tucked up onto the seat, with the steering wheel pressed into his left arm. McCoy leaned around his knees to pick up his wrist, finding Spock's unique pulse point with the ease of practice, but after a moment the doctor shifted his grip with a frown. Spock blinked slowly when McCoy looked up at him, but that seemed to be all that he could manage. McCoy hesitated for a moment, but there was not much room to maneuver. Spock's legs were pushed into the back of the seat as McCoy practically climbed into his lap to reach his neck. His fingers felt unnaturally hot against his skin, and it was only then that Spock realized he had lost all feeling in his hands. McCoy remained that way for a very long time before widening his eyes in alarm when Spock's heart finally gave a single, weak beat.

McCoy quickly pulled back and shoved his hands into the duffle bag. He removed a folded cloth, glanced at it and dropped it on the floor. He ignored Jimmy's indignant squawk and produced another, larger bundle that unfolded into a thin thermal blanket. McCoy wedged himself between Spock and the steering wheel to wrap the blanket around Spock, pulling him forward enough to tuck the edges in behind him. "I know you've taken way colder temperatures for way longer – how the hell did this happen?" McCoy demanded as he struggled to back out of the tight space. He'd thought about just opening the other door, but it was supporting Spock and he didn't want to let what little heat there was in the car escape.

Even if Spock could have replied, he did not know the answer. While the blanket was a help, it was Spock's inability to get his mind to focus that was the real problem.

McCoy cast him another concerned look, then shook his head with a scowl. "I'm just a kid in this year, and my requisitions are limited," McCoy sighed. "No medkit, not even a tricorder. And of course, no weapons." McCoy leaned over to pick up the cloth on the floor and shook it out into a small full-body outfit. He spent the next couple minutes struggling to get Jimmy into it and eventually had to bribe the child with another treat. "You're a regular little extortionist," McCoy grumbled as Jimmy chewed happily.

McCoy slipped a hand beneath Spock's blanket to check his wrist for a pulse again, and this time Spock was pleased to note that he could feel it. "Better," McCoy confirmed, "but you're still ice cold." The doctor looked heavenwards in supplication. "_Please_ don't make me have to crawl in there," he begged, then glowered at Spock. "Because if I do, then I swear the entire fleet is gonna hear about that mess you an' Jim got into on that last shore leave – down to the last yeoman!"

Strength that Spock did not know he had revealed itself, jolting his sluggish mind into sudden clarity. "That," he began, but his voice was thick and rough and he had to pause to clear his throat, "will not be necessary, Doctor McCoy." He tried to tell himself that neither threat held any incentive, but McCoy narrowed his eyes at him with a smug grin before reaching into the bag again. He wordlessly removed a bottle of water and set about cleaning the soot and chocolate off of Jimmy's face and hands.

Now that his mind was back in order, he was able to get his metabolism on track within a few minutes. Even so, he did not feel himself to be in full health. He set his feet back on the floor and pulled the blanket around his back so that he could hold it closed across his chest. He looked over at McCoy just in time to see the doctor draw a hand absently across his forehead. It came away damp, and McCoy stared at it in confusion.

"I suspect," Spock said, "that the time travel device has had an undesirable effect on our physiologies."

"I was thinking adrenaline crash," McCoy said, then shook his head suddenly as if to clear it. "But that wouldn't explain you."

"How did you elude security?" Spock asked, carefully flexing each muscle in turn in an attempt to stimulate circulation.

McCoy blinked at him as he processed the question. "I didn't set off the alarm – I thought you did."

Spock shook his head slowly. "We were not discovered. It was my intention to conceal our location until the alarm either passed or we were discovered."

"So what did set it off?" McCoy asked, frowning.

"Unknown," Spock answered. "But whatever it was seems to have passed."

McCoy sighed. "I feel awful," he groaned, and leaned forward to rest his head against the dashboard. His stomach churned with nausea, and he swallowed down a sudden mouthful of saliva. Now that he thought about it, he'd felt sick since the instant he'd gotten here, but he'd been so hopped up on fight or flight endorphins that it was only now really hitting him. His eyes flew open suddenly, and he stared at the dashboard without moving. "Dear God, Spock… what would have happened if I _had_ been caught?"

Spock did not reply, but they both knew the answer. He would have succumbed to hypothermia, and then Jimmy sometime later.

"I'm afraid I'll puke if I move," McCoy said, and made a vague gesture with his hand toward the bag on the seat beside him. "There's some chocolate covered potato chips in there, I think the salt will help." McCoy could practically hear Spock's eyebrow go up at that. "It's his favorite junk food, okay?"

"I did not know that," Spock said as he pulled the bag into his lap. It was an incredibly unhealthy combination.

"You still don't," McCoy said sternly.

"Did you requisition any food that is _not_ primarily sugar and salt?" Spock asked as he leaned forward to see inside the bag better.

The windshield suddenly shattered, showering glass upon them as a bright bolt of light passed so close to Spock that he could feel the heat of it through the blanket. Spock fell sideways onto the bench as McCoy yelled in alarm, and the air became thick with the scent of scorched upholstery. The entire car rocked as something heavy landed on the hood even as Spock grabbed McCoy and bodily shoved him off the seat and under the dash. Jimmy screamed as McCoy pulled him in close, curling around him instinctively.

Spock rolled onto his back just in time to see the muzzle of a blaster thrust through what remained of the windshield. He grabbed it and jerked it to the side, ignoring the pain of the hot, ionized metal against his palm. The weapon fired again, but succeeded only in tearing another enormous hole in the backrest in an explosion of fluffy insulation. Spock yanked hard on the disruptor, and the Romulan bellowed in pain as his arm scraped across jagged glass. Somehow, the Romulan managed to keep a grip on the gun and braced his feet on the frame of the windshield as a tug of war ensued. Several more shots were fired, each one choking the air with more insulation and searing Spock's hand.

Something long and dark swung up from beside Spock, slamming into the side of the weapon and catching the Romulan's fingers. The Romulan released the handle and fell back with a startled shout, and then there was silence just as abrupt and sudden as the onslaught had been. Spock looked down at McCoy, who was clutching Jimmy to his chest with one hand and the ancient rifle with the other. The only sound was the crackle of still-burning upholstery and their harsh breathing. Jimmy was looking around with wide-eyed, silent terror. McCoy's face was stark white in the dim light, and Spock was not the least bit surprised when he turned away and vomited on the carpeted floor of George Kirk's cherished car.

Spock drew a steadying breath, and then shouted, "Stay here!" McCoy jerked his head up, banging it on the dash, and Spock pointed sharply at the door.

"No, I—" McCoy began to argue but Spock cut him off.

"That is an order, Doctor," Spock said loudly, and again pointed at the door. "You _will_ stay here."

McCoy looked at the door and back as realization set in. He shook his head in denial, but Spock jerked his finger at the door again. McCoy swallowed thickly, and clutched the old rifle tighter. "Yes, Sir!" he shouted back, and looked up at the gaping hole that used to be the windshield.

Spock nodded, and held McCoy's gaze for a moment longer before turning abruptly away and shoving the driver side door open. He got out and crouched at the car's side, checking his immediate surroundings, then hefted the disruptor and melted into the darkness. Within seconds, McCoy heard the sound of a blaster firing. He supposed that was his cue. He groaned as he crawled onto the seat, and had to take a moment to get his breath back. Damned alien time travel machine. He slung the strap of the duffle bag over his shoulder, gathered up Jimmy and the rifle, and took off in the opposite direction.

Spock doubted that the ruse would work, even as he tracked the trail of blood, black against the ground, deeper into the shipyard's jumble of construction materials. He did not believe in McCoy's God, or his captain's Lady Luck. But he had also claimed once not to believe in angels, only to be plucked from clutches of what should have been certain death. Later, Spock had indulged his human friends by joining them in the captain's quarters for a drink. Though he preferred only tea, and not the brandy that the doctor and captain favored, the companionship was no less welcomed. McCoy had then tried to convince Spock that he had to believe in something. That he had to have faith in _something_. That something had to be 'pulling for them', or else by all logic they should have been dead a long time ago.

Spock had said nothing, and soon the topic had turned to a somewhat drunken discussion of the merits of checkers verses chess. Spock had not participated in that conversation, but had found himself studying his captain with rapt attention as he animatedly argued in favor of chess. If there was anything that Spock had faith in, that was not bound by the edicts of logic… Spock sighed, and shifted the disruptor in his grip. Spock knew that what he was doing was for the needs of the many… but it was also for the needs of the one. Spock shook his head firmly, forcing his muddled brain to focus. He wondered if the Romulan was suffering from the same debilitation.

Spock kept expecting the trail to double back towards the car, but the splatters of blood led him to a noisy section of the shipyard, with several large generators thrumming loudly. This area was better lit, with one giant spotlight aimed upwards at the partially constructed starship far above. Spock paused, for the trail had come to an end. He scanned the area, but did not see where the Romulan could be concealed. The construction materials here were massive containers, stacked so closely together that there were no gaps in which to hide. There was not even any room to get to the containers, they would have to be – Spock jerked his head up with sudden realization, and saw the crane towering above him.

A huge magnetic clamp swung in his direction, the machine barely louder than the surrounding generators. Spock dropped to the ground, his hours of training with his captain in the ship's gym flashing into his mind. The heavy clamp plowed into the ground barely a meter from where he'd been standing, and Spock struggled to get to his feet. He could not concentrate. It was as if every memory of Jim was suddenly trying to cram into his thoughts all at once.

Spock's head jerked up at the sound of a shriek of agony, and he could make out the silhouette of the Romulan within the control cabin of the crane. He was clutching at his head, but grabbed for the controls even as Spock stumbled towards him. The clamp lifted from the ground, the thick metal cable groaning as it flexed. Spock prepared himself to dodge it again, but instead the entire machine roared to life and began a slow trundle forward on huge treads. Spock got out of its way, and grabbed onto a rung of the ladder bolted to the side of the machine as it passed.

The higher Spock climbed, the closer he got to the Romulan, the more memories of James T. Kirk flooded into his skull. Not just memories, but every thought and observation Spock had ever had. The arm of the crane swung wide, and Spock narrowed his eyes through the pain in his head to follow its trajectory. It slammed into a stack of containers, toppling it into its neighbor and setting off a cascade. The roar was deafening as one after another fell, and Spock quickly realized that George Kirk's car was now buried somewhere in the twisted pile of metal.

The Romulan crowed with delight, but Spock resumed climbing. Jim and McCoy were not dead. He knew this for a certainty, because the alternative was unthinkable. The Romulan's jubilation was abruptly cut short as he clawed at his head again and bent double in agony. Spock was close enough to the top now to see a red, pulsing glow radiating from the centurion's wrist. The time bracelet. Even as he watched, it glowed brighter and pulsed faster.

Spock did not understand why no one had come running. He was fairly certain the noise they were making could quite possibly be heard from the moon. He looked up at the starship above them, and blinked in surprise. There was nothing but a swirling mist. Startled, Spock looked over his shoulder. Everything looked as it should, except the darkness just at the edge of his vision moved with more of the mist. A rush of wind whirled around them as Spock hauled himself over the last rung of the ladder and into the cabin.

The Romulan spun around then, finally noticing him. Spock raised the weapon, but swayed where he stood, unable to focus. The Romulan let out a roar and caught him around the middle in a headlong charge. Spock had just enough time to let out a startled gasp as both tumbled out of the cabin. Spock tried to roll into the fall, but it was a long way down. He struck the ground with bone-jarring force and felt something in his arm snap. The Romulan crawled to his hands and knees, but seemed unable to do more than that. Spock heaved himself onto his side, and then to his knees. His arm hung limply at his side, but he ignored it.

He'd lost the disruptor in the fall, and when he searched for it he saw that the swirling wall of grey nothingness was closer, towering above and beyond the stacked mounds of construction. The Romulan was standing when Spock looked back at him, the time bracelet a solid, bright red glow around his wrist.

The centurion coughed, a wet, unpleasant sound, and wiped away the blood that dribbled onto his chin.

"You must stop this," Spock said, and pointed at the encroaching grey. Grief suddenly filled him, and an overwhelming sense of utter failure. The only explanation was that Jim was dead, that he had failed. "Time is changing around us, and it will destroy us."

"Let it change," the Romulan snarled. "When it consumes us, all that will be left is the glory of the Romulan Star Empire!"

"No, it is _nothingness_. We must go back, and stop this," Spock insisted, as the Romulan stumbled closer.

"Why do you serve that human?" the Romulan suddenly demanded, swaying drunkenly as he took another step closer. "We are kin, you and I," the Romulan continued, forcing each word out and wiping away another dribble of emerald green blood. "We are the superior race. It is our _right_ to rule the universe!"

Spock commanded his legs to move, but they did not. The Romulan backhanded him across the face and he toppled backward. He nearly blacked out from the pain in his arm, but could not spare the energy to quell the agony. His entire mind could do nothing but think of Jim – every memory, every thought, everything that had ever been Jim. The closer the Romulan came to him, the worse it got. Spock lay on his back, unable to move.

But he could still talk. "Others… are… superior…" he managed to grind out.

The Romulan's lip curled as he bent over him. Blood dripped onto the ground beside Spock's head. "You mean your Organians, and spineless creatures like them? They haven't the _will_ to rule!"

"That is… what makes them… superior," Spock said.

"Get up," the Romulan snarled, and kicked him roughly in the side when he did not obey. "Get up!"

The Romulan struck him again, and in that brief moment of contact, Spock suddenly understood. His eyes tracked the Romulan's arm as it rose to deliver another blow, the red light like a beacon strapped to his wrist. When it came down, Spock mustered every bit of strength and channeled it into one, single action. He clasped the bracelet, wrapping his fingers around it so tightly that the Romulan stumbled in surprise and tried to pull his arm back.

He must remember Jim. As long as the memory existed, the timeline existed.

The hot tingle of the bracelet vanished from his palm as the Romulan succeeded in reclaiming his arm. But now the memories were no longer being forced upon him from an outside source. Spock swirled everything up into a brilliant mass in his thoughts, visualizing how Jim's mind looked in a meld. No one in the universe knew this one man as Spock did.

"We have not forgotten our brethren, even after all this time," the Romulan hissed at him. He walked around Spock, circling like a predator. Spock let him, gathering his strength. "There are many that still want to make _reconciliation_," he said, making the word a curse. "But you still ally yourselves with the weak. Why do you serve?" the Romulan demanded again. "You are smarter, faster, stronger – _tell me_!"

Spock stared up at him. He could hear the cry of a baby over the rushing wind, and saw a figure stumble out from behind a tumbled pile of metal behind the Romulan. The greyness was right behind him. The Romulan was too intent on his prey to notice, and a calm settled over Spock, of a kind that he could not describe. It would take the entirety of the glowing orb he cradled in his mind to explain it.

_Faith._

"He is the balance," Spock said slowly, not entirely certain where the words came from. He needed to keep the Romulan distracted. He grit his teeth and struggled to rise as the centurion watched him warily. The swirling grey mist drew closer, and the Romulan glanced briefly at it before taking a cautious step back. It was clear he wanted his answer before history was rewritten. "There is the Vulcan way of logic, and the Romulan way of passion," Spock said as he got to his knees. Spock looked up at the Romulan, whose name he did not even know, and rested one hand on the rough concrete at his feet in an effort to remain upright. "I serve because he is the balance. If I can learn it as well, then perhaps, one day, we can have peace."

The Romulan stared at him. "I could almost believe you, Vulcan," he said quietly, and Spock was surprised to see the regret on his face. "But there can never be peace." He raised his hand, and the blade of a dagger glinted in the angry red glare of the bracelet.

"This thing doesn't have a stun setting," McCoy said.

The Romulan spun around and tried to split his attention in two directions. The hands of a surgeon of McCoy's caliber did not shake, and the muzzle of the disruptor did not waver despite the look of terror on the doctor's face. The Romulan narrowed his eyes, calculating the threat the human posed.

"Don't!" McCoy shouted, his voice cracking, when the Romulan started to move toward Spock.

The Romulan spared the doctor a sneer of disgust, dismissing him and his weapon, before raising his arm. Spock was close enough to clearly see the look of shock on the Romulan's face when the bright orange tongue of energy impacted and went straight through. The expression was frozen into place as the Romulan fell, dead before he hit the ground with a large black hole smoking in his side. Some part of Spock's mind disjointedly noted that it was the exact location of a Vulcan heart.

"Oh, God," McCoy said, and the sound of the disruptor clattering to the ground echoed oddly in the sudden stillness. The wind was gone.

Spock's pulse hammered in his ears, and small pinpricks of light were encroaching on the edges of his vision. He turned his head, looking for the source of the crying. The rushing wall of grey was gone. He didn't even try to understand what had just happened. He focused on the tiny form sprawled on the ground behind McCoy and lurched forward. The doctor did not move as Spock passed him. The duffle bag and the rifle lay on the ground beside the baby. Tears tracked down the chubby cheeks, but Jimmy's wails stopped with a hiccup of surprise when he saw Spock leaning over him. Spock did not know if it was safe to move him, and was therefore reluctant to even touch him. The screams abruptly resumed, even louder, when Spock failed to make the pain go away.

Spock looked over his shoulder to McCoy, but the doctor was staring at the still-smoking corpse. The smell of burned flesh was nauseating. Spock got stiffly to his feet, straitening the hem of his tattered tunic with dignity, and banished the pain in his arm and his skull. He closed the distance between them, forcing his stride into his usual calm pace despite his urgent desire to get assistance for Jimmy. "Doctor McCoy," he said as he drew near, but McCoy did not seem to hear. "Doctor—"

"Don't call me that!" McCoy suddenly snarled, not looking away from the dead Romulan.

Spock hesitated. "I understand how—"

"What would you know about it, Spock?" McCoy demanded angrily, rounding on him with his hands clenched in fists at his side.

The fact of the matter was that Spock did understand. He sympathized with McCoy, for in many ways their philosophies coincided and McCoy had indeed done a very terrible thing. But Spock knew what it was like to go against your basic beliefs, to betray that which you knew to be true and right, for the sake of something greater. He knew what it was like to resort to barbarity for the greater good, when all other options were exhausted. Duty, in most cases, but in recent years for the sake of — Spock cut off that train of thought.

Spock would have done everything in his power to kill that assassin, and would have fought to his last breath to accomplish that goal. This was not the way of Surak. A part of Spock could not come to terms with many of the actions he had taken since James T. Kirk had become captain of the Enterprise. Yet, despite all of that, Spock knew that he would not have acted differently if presented with a chance to do so. Somewhere in all of that was the balance that Spock desired so much.

Spock did not have the words to express any of these sentiments; he knew himself to be appallingly inept at such things. There were very few beings in existence for whom Spock would even make the attempt. McCoy was one of those few, but Spock was at a loss. Jim would know what to say if he was here… but he wasn't. "I know that you are a doctor," Spock said quietly. "And that you are needed. _Jim_ needs you."

McCoy stared blankly at him. Then, slowly, his eyes focused on the present. McCoy blinked, his eyes widening in alarm, and hurried past Spock to kneel beside Jimmy. Spock watched him for a moment, then swallowed and moved to stand over the dead Romulan. The time bracelet pulsed a very slow blue as Spock bent to remove it from the limp wrist. The baby was still crying when Spock crossed back over to them.

"His leg is broken. We need to get him to a hospital," McCoy said and then frowned and looked up at Spock from where he knelt on the ground. "What exactly happened here, Spock?" he asked. "There was this big wall, and I tried to get away from it but I… I couldn't think, I could barely move. I think…" he broke off and looked down at Jimmy with a guilty frown. "I think I tripped."

"I do not know what happened," was the only answer Spock could give him. He held out the bracelet. "I believe this is the only one who knows."

McCoy didn't bother to argue.

"We cannot stay here," Spock said, searching the surrounding darkness.

"Well, I don't have anything to give him, and we won't get far like this," McCoy said, making an all-encompassing gesture that took in their ragged exhaustion and the sobbing baby.

Spock knelt slowly, feeling as though every muscle and bone in his body was protesting. He carefully spread his fingers over Jimmy's cheek and forehead, and blinked with surprise when the small face turned eagerly into his palm. Spock took away the pain in soothing waves of calm, and within moments he was sound asleep.

"Too bad you can't do that to keep him in sickbay," McCoy said with a snort.

Spock said nothing as the doctor bundled the child into his arms. Both got painfully to their feet, and Spock turned in a complete circle to study how much havoc had been wrecked. The stacks of containers remained in a jumbled pile, with George Kirk's car crushed beneath all of it. There was no sign of anything that resembled shipyard security, just a very disturbing, unnatural calm. Spock reluctantly picked up the abandoned disruptor, and studied it briefly before adjusting a setting. McCoy looked away as Spock fired several rounds into the corpse, until it disintegrated into a greasy smear on the pavement. Spock picked up the rifle and the duffle bag and led the way, and McCoy followed in an exhausted daze. No one stopped them as they walked across the shipyard, and no one stopped them as they helped themselves to one of the transport shuttles.

About halfway to Riverside, the light on the bracelet winked out.


	8. Chapter 8

McCoy was pretty sure the basic design of transport shuttles hadn't changed since the day they came off the drawing board. This one had a pilot and copilot seat up front, room for about thirty passengers midsection, and at the far end was a head with - blessed be the saints - an emergency field kit. "Thank God," McCoy muttered under his breath when he popped the overlarge case open and saw that it included a basic bone-knitter with its supplies.

McCoy hauled the entire thing up front and dropped it to the deck at the foot of the copilot's seat, where Jimmy slept soundly. McCoy glanced at Spock, seated silently in the pilot's chair, and looked away with a guilty flutter in his belly. He shouldn't have snapped at Spock like that. He knew perfectly well that there were plenty of times Spock had been forced to do something that went against his Vulcan beliefs. Things that Spock had never had to do before, because his former captain had respected his wishes and allowed him to keep mostly to the science labs.

Not that McCoy blamed Jim. Privately (very privately) McCoy knew that the Enterprise, and Starfleet in general, was far better off with Spock at the captain's right hand. Something had to offset that crazy spontaneity of his, just as McCoy knew it was his job to remind Jim when he shut his emotions off _too_ much. Jim needed both of them, and McCoy knew that he and Spock had both done things for his sake that they could never have imagined themselves ever doing. He cringed at the thought, for it wasn't even the first time McCoy had killed. Last time, it'd been the last of a species, almost genocide by McCoy's reckoning. He didn't think he'd ever forgive himself for that… but Jim would be dead if he hadn't, and part of him would never regret that.

McCoy sighed as he knelt on the deck between the two seats to use the chair as a table, and unzipped Jimmy's one-piece outfit. He blotted everything out by focusing on carefully working the cloth from around the injured leg. The soft whir of the tricorder seemed loud in the stillness as he scanned the broken bone. Jimmy's leg was starting to darken with a nasty bruise, but it was a clean break and there was no sign of any internal injuries. Jimmy didn't wake when he set it, which kind of worried him, but he supposed it was better that way. Spock must have put him under much further than before. McCoy spent the next ten minutes or so mending the bone, and then tucked his leg back into the little outfit. He wrapped him up in the thermal blanket, more for comfort than any need for warmth.

"He's okay," McCoy said. "But he should be checked out properly at a hospital."

He took a deep breath when Spock only gave a slight nod, because he knew he was going to be in for a fight. As drained and ill as McCoy felt, he knew Spock was in far worse shape. Thin streaks of green on his uniform from flying glass gave evidence of lacerations in addition to the obviously broken arm. Spock had been walking at a slight angle, which made McCoy suspect he also suffered from at least one busted rib. The disruptor rested on the helm in front of him as though he expected something else to happen. The time bracelet was on the wrist of his broken arm, which rested at an odd angle in his lap. Spock's other hand was wrapped around the silver band, his fingers absently moving gently over the smooth surface. It looked harmless, but McCoy couldn't help wondering if it was doing something to his friend.

McCoy cleared his throat hesitantly. "Maybe you should take that thing off."

Spock did not look at him. "I am attempting to communicate with it."

"Oh," was all McCoy could come up with in reply. Yup… it was definitely going to be a battle. McCoy scooped up the blanket with its very important contents and settled it on the nearest passenger seat behind them. The shuttle simply was not designed for children, and there was no way to properly strap him in. McCoy settled for rigging part of the harness around him that should work if they somehow ended up in a crash after all that had happened tonight. McCoy then dropped back into the copilot's seat and swiveled it in Spock's direction.

Spock blinked, returning to the present at the sound of the tricorder's hum again. He had been unable to communicate directly with whatever intelligence governed the bracelet, but he did now believe without doubt that it _was_ a form of sentience. He was still having difficulty focusing and McCoy's ministrations would only distract him further. Spock opened his mouth to dismiss him, but McCoy anticipated him.

With an angry growl, McCoy seized the edge of his seat and spun it so that it faced him directly. "Dammit, Spock, don't argue with me!"

Something about McCoy's demeanor made Spock close his mouth slowly. He allowed McCoy to scan him without protest, suddenly sensing that it was just something the doctor needed to do. McCoy went after his broken arm first, and Spock remained patiently silent while he fussed with the other minor injuries until at last the doctor gave a little sound of satisfaction and moved away to drop into the copilot chair. He gave a little wave of the bone-knitter before placing it back into the medkit. "It's not designed for the density of Vulcan bone, so that'll have to do for now," McCoy said and snapped the case closed. "When we get back to the Enterprise, I want you in sickbay so I can finish it properly. Try not to use it too much in the meantime."

Spock watched him for a moment, but could think of nothing to say. He looked back down at the alien device in his hand, and returned to studying the script glowing on its screen.

"Is that what you do?" McCoy asked a few minutes later.

Spock looked up, his brows drawing together in confusion. McCoy met his eyes, then looked away uncomfortably and Spock knew instantly that McCoy was building up to an apology.

Spock suppressed a sigh. Apologies were illogical and unnecessary… for Vulcans. Over time, however, he had come to understand that they were sometimes necessary for humans. Humans had to have an outlet for negative emotions, and Spock often found himself serving as that outlet. He had even learned how to provoke the reaction when he decided it was needed. Many, many times, Spock found his two closest friends apologizing to him, or witnessed them apologizing to each other. One would think they would realize that the apologies were inevitable, understood as given, and therefore simply not needed. As was often the case with humans, logic did not prevail.

"Do what, Doctor?" Spock prompted when McCoy remained silent.

"When you've done something for Jim that would have that Surak of yours spinning in his grave," McCoy said. "Do you try to make up for it by… by being useful?"

Spock looked away, brushing a thumb over one of the indented icons on the bracelet. "It is logical to always be as productive as possible," he said. There was silence for a moment longer, and Spock felt compelled to look up and meet his gaze. "A wrong can never truly be righted. The best we can do is try to ensure that our good deeds outweigh the evil in the end."

McCoy scowled. "It's always numbers with you, isn't it?" Spock's hand tightened on the bracelet and he looked away, but looked back when McCoy suddenly grasped his arm. "Look, I'm sorry, I didn't mean that," he said quickly. McCoy released him quickly, with a brief wave of his hand in apology. He slouched in his chair, and looked over at Jimmy. "It's just…"

"Understood," Spock said quietly.

McCoy gave him a tentative smile, then looked down at the bracelet on Spock's wrist. "So," he said with a distinct air of changing the topic, "any luck with that thing?"

Spock also looked to the time bracelet, grateful to speak of something else. "I believe the symbols on the left of the display indicate numerals, and those to the right are a complex alphabet. The device appears to store the most recent destination as well as the one prior, the characters of which I am attempting to use to determine—"

"Never mind," McCoy broke in, waving a hand and turning away. "I'm sorry I asked."

Spock raised a prim eyebrow at him, and the familiarity of the expression caused McCoy to give an almost unconscious snort. The cabin once again fell into silence, but this time it was a much more comfortable one and McCoy's mind drifted as he stared out the cockpit window. They didn't need the bracelet to get back home. There was the Guardian of Forever, which wasn't being guarded yet, or a sling shot around the sun. Both required a ship, however, and the sling-shot meant taking the ship with them to the future. No telling what that would do to the timeline – just stealing a ship alone would probably be enough to put something out of whack. God only knew what damage they'd already done here. It occurred to McCoy that Spock had already thought of all this, and probably a whole lot more. He tilted his head back until it rested against the back of the seat, and didn't realize he'd fallen asleep until he felt his shoulder being nudged.

"Doctor McCoy," Spock said, probably not for the first time. "We have arrived."

McCoy grunted an acknowledgement, and took a deep breath to clear his head. Spock went first, passing him in the narrow walkway of the shuttle. McCoy let his breath out in a sigh and heaved himself out of the chair. He looped the strap of the bag over his shoulder, making sure the handle of the rifle that was sticking out was still secure before slinging it back past his hip, and set about unstrapping Jimmy.

He looked around with a frown as he stepped out into the frigid night air. He'd been expecting a hospital, but it looked like they were parked in an out of the way corner of a public transport station. He looked back at their stolen shuttle, and saw that it had been set down neatly beside a dozen just like it. "We're not going to a hospital, are we?" McCoy asked with a numb sort of calm. A part of his mind informed him politely that he was displaying symptoms of shock.

"Correct," Spock answered, and began walking.

All manner of objections popped into the doctor's head, but none of them made it to his mouth. As much as McCoy wanted to debate the issue, he knew that whatever Spock was planning probably was the better course of action. He would never, ever admit that out loud, though. Ever. Instead he rolled his eyes to the stars and trudged after the Vulcan. Every single muscle in his body was aching with exhaustion, and he was just too tired to argue with him. If this was what one bout with the time machine felt like, McCoy was _not _looking forward the return trip.

Spock glanced at him sideways, and the severe lines around his mouth softened slightly with a barely perceptible look of sympathy. "We cannot take him there ourselves," Spock explained quietly as they walked. "I have already accessed the name George Kirk gave us, and it is not far from here. We must travel on foot, due to our appearance."

McCoy bobbed his head in a nod, and tried not to think how far 'not far' might be as he shambled almost blindly behind Spock. So many things could have gone wrong before they got there, but no one noticed them and 'not far' turned out to be not far. Before he knew it McCoy was standing in front of a mid sized house on a quiet street. The porch light was on, a welcoming yellow glow that lit up the stone path all the way to the sidewalk.

"You're sure this is the place?" McCoy asked.

Spock hesitated. "Based on the phonetics of the name given, this is the most likely address."

"Uh huh," McCoy muttered. "Here, give me that," he said, pulling at the disruptor in Spock's hand. Spock blinked, but made no effort to stop McCoy as he shoved it into the duffle bag. The bag landed with a clank on the lawn, out of range of the porch light. "Take him," McCoy ordered, shifting Jimmy in his arms so that he could pass him to Spock.

Spock's hands came up automatically to accept the sleeping child, as though there was some danger that McCoy would drop him, but he stared at the doctor without comprehension. McCoy knew for a fact right then and there that the Vulcan had to be mere minutes from collapse. McCoy made sure Jimmy was firmly tucked into the crook of Spock's arm before releasing him, then combed his fingers through his hair and smoothed down his shirt. "I look a hell of a lot more presentable than you do at the moment, Spock. Just in case we've got the wrong place."

Spock nodded once in understanding, and stepped into the shadows. McCoy straightened his shoulders with determination and scrubbed a hand across his face as he walked up the path. A padded swing bench hung from two thick hooks in the roof of the porch, and McCoy stared longingly at it as he pressed the door chime. He wanted to go to sleep and not wake up for a week. He dragged his attention back to the door when he heard the sound of heavy footsteps from within.

McCoy ran a hand through his hair again, trying to come up with some plausible way to explain the dried blood on his uniform if he had to. Mud? His car broke down? The door opened, revealing a heavyset man with thick brow ridges and reptilian features. "Um, hello, Mister, uh…" McCoy began, but suddenly could not recall the jumble of vowels that constituted this man's name.

"It's you?" George Kirk's voice said, and the doctor nearly passed out with relief when Jim's father stepped out from behind the door. "You look horrible," he continued, and McCoy let out an involuntary bark of laughter that sounded dangerously close to the edge of hysteria. "Are you all right? Where's—" Kirk broke off and looked at something behind McCoy.

McCoy raised both hands to stop him from leaving the house, but Kirk's friend was both faster and stronger. His arm shot out to block the doorway, and Kirk's breath rushed out in a surprised woof as he slammed into it. Kirk opened his mouth to protest, but his friend unceremoniously grabbed his shoulder and shoved him back into the house.

"Inssside," the man barked at McCoy, and stepped aside. McCoy turned around and saw Spock making his way up the pathway, with the bag slung over his shoulder. Jimmy was awake and braced against his hip, looking around in sleepy confusion. "Quickly!" the man said, pulling at McCoy's arm and making a gesture towards Spock to hurry.

"Dammit, Oola," Kirk was saying as McCoy stumbled into the welcome warmth of the house.

"Your mammal glandsss blind you," Oola said curtly. "He bringsss your child – do not leave."

"He's okay," McCoy hurried to assure him. "Everything's okay."

Kirk relaxed only slightly, barely able to restrain himself until Spock was in the house and Oola closed the door with a weary sigh.

"Thank you," Kirk said as Spock carefully transferred Jimmy to his father's arms. Kirk settled his son against his chest, and gestured with his free hand for all of them to follow as he led the way into an adjoining room. A large screen dominated the area, with a couch and several comfortable chairs arranged around a low coffee table. "Is this your doing?" Kirk asked, picking up a remote control from a small end table and pressing a button.

The sound remained off, but the screen came alive with an aerial view of Riverside Shipyard. Red and blue lights flashed everywhere, from flying craft that circled above as well as from ground vehicles. The centerpiece of the tableau was the massive spread of construction containers, which from this vantage point looked like a giant hand had come along and leveled half the shipyard. Pinpricks of light bobbed in and around the area as a swarm of uniformed officers picked through the wreckage.

"I thought so," Kirk said, and both officers turned to look back at him at the tone. Kirk narrowed his eyes at them. "Where is my car?"

"Um," McCoy ventured but Spock simply returned to staring at the wreckage.

"She's under all of that, isn't she?" Kirk asked.

McCoy licked his lips and offered an apologetic smile.

Kirk scowled at him for a second, but the expression faded away as he looked at Spock again. McCoy could see the Starfleet-trained officer look the Vulcan over with a critical eye and the doctor knew he could see his condition. Spock continued to simply stare at the silent screen, and Kirk's irritation bled out of him with a sigh. He looked down and adjusted Jimmy again before looking back up. "I knew I wasn't going to get my car back anyway," he said with a wistful smile.

"I really am sorry," McCoy said.

"How will you explain when they find it, eh?" Oola asked, then pointed at one of the couches while Kirk mulled over the question. "Sit down, both of you," Oola said, "before you fall down." McCoy looked down at his bloody uniform and then back at the pristine white couch, but Oola shook his head. "Trust me, you won't bother that material."

Kirk rubbed at the back of his neck and sighed. "I'll report it stolen once I get back home," he said. "With the fire and the intruder and all, I didn't notice that it was gone."

"You're okay with all of this?" McCoy asked Oola as he forced his feet to move just long enough so that he could ease his sore body into one of the soft chairs. Spock, McCoy noted, remained standing. McCoy's mouth thinned into a concerned frown as he watched the Vulcan absently caress the bracelet while staring at the screen, but he didn't say anything.

The alien gave a one shouldered shrug. "I'm usssed to it." Oola didn't have eyebrows, but the bony ridge above his eyes creased in a way that managed to convey doubt as he looked back at Kirk. Then he shook his head with a short huff of irritation. "But if anyone could make that flimsy explanation fly, you could."

Everyone looked over at Spock at the sound of a clunk, to see the Vulcan blink once at the duffel bag that had slipped form his shoulder. Spock bent without a word to retrieve the Romulan disruptor, then left the bag and the rest of its contents on the floor as he headed for the kitchen that could be seen through another doorway of the living room. A moment later the familiar sound of a disposal unit drifted out of them.

Oola heaved a weary sigh. "I don't even want to know," he said. "It isss almossst morning. I have only one other ssspare room, but that couch is very comfortable."

McCoy was pretty sure he could sleep on a bed of nails at this point, but Spock returned at that moment. "I'm afraid we must decline your offer of hospitality," he said and utterly ignored McCoy's dismayed groan.

"Are you sure?" Kirk asked, looking between the two of them. "I mean, I haven't even had time to thank you properly. I don't even know your _names_."

"Quite certain," Spock said, and gave McCoy a stern look.

McCoy knew better than to argue with _that_ look, so he struggled to free himself from the glorious softness of the chair. He supposed he'd known it was too risky – the longer they stayed, the greater the chance that they'd have an effect on something.

"Listen," McCoy said as Kirk saw them both to the door. McCoy paused for a moment, surprised to see the first rays of morning sun peeking up over the tops of the neighborhood trees and houses. "I'd feel a lot better if you took Jimmy to a hospital soon," he continued, then waved a hand to calm Kirk's sudden look of alarm. "He's fine. He had a broken leg that's been healed, but there's some bumps and bruises, plus the smoke from the fire. Nothing serious," McCoy quickly assured him again. "But I'd feel better all the same."

Kirk nodded as they turned to leave. "Hey," he said suddenly, and they turned around. Spock's hand gave a brief, impulsive twitch when he saw that Kirk had tucked the boy under his arm like a football. Jimmy squealed and kicked his feet in delight, making little gurgling noises that only increased in happiness when his father jostled him absently against his hip. "How does he do?" Kirk asked hesitantly. "What kind of man does he become?"

McCoy drew a breath to speak, and Spock turned to him with a raised eyebrow. The doctor closed his mouth with a disappointed frown, which was mirrored by Kirk when Spock looked back at him. Something about the expression on the elder Kirk's face settled a cold lump in Spock's chest, and he swallowed reflexively. What little knowledge Spock possessed concerning Jim's family included the fact that his father had died not long after his captain was given command of the Enterprise. Spock was reasonably certain that meeting was their last. Unless something they had done in the past day had changed that fact, George Kirk would not live to see his son become the greatest captain in Starfleet history.

Something purely human stirred at the back of his mind, managing to wrest away a portion of his formidable Vulcan control.

McCoy's eyes widened slightly when Spock did not walk away, and he looked back at Kirk with a smile. "I think I speak for both of us when I say he's gonna make one hell of a starship captain, sir, and the best friend anyone could ever have."

"Captain?" Kirk asked, a proud smile lighting up his face. "Starfleet?"

"We must go now," Spock said, torn between regret and satisfaction.

"Thank you," Kirk said again. "For everything."

"You are welcome," Spock said with some bemusement as McCoy waved at Jimmy, and raised an eyebrow when the child waved back.

McCoy looked over their shoulder once, when they were almost to the end of the street, and Kirk was still standing on the porch watching them. All too soon, though, they turned a corner and they were gone. McCoy laced his hands behind his back as they walked and gave Spock a sidelong glance. "Well, that was nice of you."

Spock hummed a short, noncommittal noise but did not reply. Instead, he lifted his arm so that the bracelet was in clear view for both of them. "I believe I have the basic settings worked out to return us to our own time," he said. "I suggest we leave immediately."

McCoy frowned. "Jim wasn't in very good shape, Spock, when we left. Not to mention the others that went down in the fire fight." It felt so strange to be talking about it. He knew it was only a few hours ago, but it felt like days. "We could go back earlier and warn them. Us. Whatever."

Spock nodded in agreement, and looked up and down the street to make certain no one was in sight. "There is a strong mental component involved with setting the parameters of this device. I believe we should arrive close to our destination, but we cannot risk overshooting our mark. A second jump might be required to fine tune the coordinates. Please take a firm hold of my arm." McCoy blinked as Spock bent his elbow towards him. "Physical contact is required to ensure we both make the transition."

McCoy pulled a face, and reluctantly entwined his arm with Spock's. "Nobody had better see this," he muttered.

Spock pressed a final indentation on the bracelet, and gave it a clear mental impression of where and when he wanted them to be. He closed his eyes against the sudden vertigo and light, and tried to repress the extremely unpleasant skin-crawling sensation. He felt McCoy let go of his arm and stumble against him as the wave passed. Knowing what to expect made recovery faster, and Spock quickly looked around.

"What the hell?" Kirk demanded, drawing Spock's attention. Spock was momentarily frozen as he struggled to control an enormous wave of relief rushing over him at seeing Jim standing there, blinking to clear his vision. The timeline was intact. Spock blinked away a sudden surge of exhaustion - how had he forgotten about this?

"Oops," McCoy said beside him, and Kirk spun around to face him. The sense of deja vu was nearly overwhelming, and McCoy stared mutely as Kirk frowned in confusion at him before shifting his gaze to take in Spock.

"Fascinating," Spock-2 said, and Kirk looked quickly at him.

McCoy could see realization dawn on Jim's face, and the surprise and confusion were suddenly wiped away with determination. "Oh no, I remember this," McCoy said, and seized Spock's arm again. "No, Jim, wait!" he cried even as Kirk's fist smashed into the com on the wall.

"Intruder alert, deck six!" the captain said urgently. "Intruder alert!"

"This is too late!" McCoy shouted over the caterwaul of the red alert claxon going off. "Go back sooner!"

Spock heaved a patient sigh as he adjusted the controls of the time bracelet. "That would be considerably easier if you would cease jostling my arm."

"Dammit, Spock, we don't have time for this!"

"On the contrary, Doctor, we have all the time—"

"You know damn well what I meant, you green-blooded son of a—"

"Who are you?" Kirk demanded, edging closer with Spock-2 matching his movements in that unnerving way they had of thinking at the same time.

"Jim, listen to me," McCoy said quickly, holding up a hand to stop Kirk.

Kirk hesitated for just a moment as a squad of red-shirted officers rounded the curve of the corridor, sprinting towards them with phasers drawn. That moment of indecision was all they needed, however, and McCoy sent a quick prayer to anyone who was listening when the skin-crawling sensation washed over him. He closed his eyes against the light and the vertigo, having never been so grateful to feel something so unpleasant.

Now, McCoy would never, _ever_ admit this to that arrogant Vulcan, but he put a lot of faith in Spock's scientific abilities. When Spock said they would have to cut it close in order to get a more accurate fix, McCoy fully expected the next jump to be dead on.

Therefore, it came as more of a shock than it probably should have when he opened his eyes and saw nothing that resembled any part of the Enterprise.


	9. Chapter 9

A tiny noise of discomfort, barely audible and instantly cut off, made McCoy aware that his grip on Spock's injured arm had tightened. He quickly released him, looking around the featureless chamber they were in. The floor, walls, and ceiling were obscured by a rolling fog that covered everything with hazy shadows. Flashes of light flickered constantly from all directions without any seaming pattern, tinting the mist with a rainbow of random color.

"Greetings," Spock said beside him, and McCoy jumped as he whipped his head back around.

A tall being had appeared before them, the fog swirling around it as though it were a cloak. It was bipedal, with long, spindly legs and arms, and McCoy could see nothing that might indicate gender despite its utter lack of any clothing. Something about the way its large, hairless head tilted slowly at them, huge eyes blinking languidly, set McCoy's nerves on edge.

"Greetings, Spock of Vulcan and McCoy of Earth," the alien replied. Its tiny slit of a mouth did not move, and the quality of the voice reverberated in McCoy's head in a way that the doctor knew from experience was telepathy. "My form disturbs you," the alien continued, and even though its facial expression did not change, nor did it make any gesture, McCoy knew it was referring to him.

"Um," McCoy said, knowing it wasn't exactly diplomatic to admit to that, but unable to honestly deny the truth of it. Invisible, icy fingers brushed across his face, but the touch was fleeting and gone before he could do more than give a startled gasp.

"A racial memory," the alien said, surprise coloring its flat voice. "We had not thought your species would remember."

"Remember what?" McCoy asked, but the alien had already turned its attention to Spock.

"And you should not have been able to operate the time device," it added, its oversized, bug like eyes narrowing slightly. Spock suddenly raised a hand to his temple and took one step backwards before completely freezing in place, as if locked into some kind of force field.

McCoy glanced between the alien and the pained look on Spock's face. "Stop it," he said. The alien ignored him, and Spock's shoulders hunched slightly with strain. "Stop it, dammit!" he shouted, stepping between them. "Can't you see you're hurting him?" The alien gave no indication that it had even heard him. McCoy grit his teeth with determination and started forward, but found himself unable to move. McCoy struggled, knowing instinctively that it was pointless even as he did so. He couldn't turn around to see Spock now, but he heard the Vulcan let out a small grunt of effort. "You have no right to do this!" McCoy shouted in fury.

Spock let out a gasp and stumbled into McCoy's back as they were both released from whatever was holding them. McCoy braced his feet to bear the weight, but Spock was upright an instant later. "You all right?" McCoy whispered, taking a step back to stand beside him.

Spock had gone several shades paler, and his mouth was pressed into a stern, grim line, but he gave McCoy a tight nod. "I am uninjured."

"It would appear that your species has advanced more than we thought possible in the time since we last visited," the alien said, and waved a skeletal arm in the air. The bracelet disappeared from around Spock's wrist in a flash of light and reappeared in the alien's hand.

"You should have that thing looked at," McCoy said flippantly, trying to steady his own nerves. "Feels like going through a meat grinder."

The alien studied him for a long moment, its head tilting to such an angle that it looked like the massive, misshapen thing would roll off of the impossibly thin neck supporting it. "It was not designed for your physiology," it replied after a long moment. "You cannot comprehend how astonished we are that the device allowed you access at all." The bracelet glowed blue in the alien's hand, and the enormous eyes grew even larger as it jerked its head down to look at it.

"Who are you?" McCoy asked.

The alien looked up slowly. "We are… custodians." The fog suddenly lit up so brightly that McCoy lifted a hand to shield his face and Spock squinted into the glare. The alien held up the glowing bracelet. "You see as well as I do their past. You see the mark left upon them, and from whom. It is time." The lights went dormant altogether, leaving them in shadowy gloom. The alien slowly lowered its arm and regarded Spock and McCoy in turn. "Long ago, a favor was asked of us, by one for whom we could not deny any request. Ask your questions."

"Custodians of what?" Spock immediately asked.

"Time."

"Why did you bring us here?"

"We did not," the being answered and made a slight gesture with the hand that held the bracelet. "This one did. You do not yet have a full understanding of the nature of time. You could not be allowed to make your next intended transition. Neither you nor the other species involved in this… incident… should have been allowed _any_ transitions. But as with all things, there are always exceptions."

"Why an exception this time?" McCoy demanded. "Why in God's name allow the Romulans access to a time machine?"

A single light pulsed from the fog, and the alien looked at it silently for a long moment before turning back to McCoy. "Time is a flexible entity, but there are some things that cannot be altered. They are fixed points, serving to bind the flow of time together. Whatever happens, the First One will find a way to make certain that those events always occur, without fail. In this instance, exceptions had to be made to ensure the stability of time. Permitting you to retain this knowledge is another exception, allowing for an event that has yet to occur."

"Who is this First One?" Spock asked.

The fog flared at that, and the alien emitted a very human sounding sigh. "Should you, for any reason, begin to speak of any of the events occurring between the moment of your first transition to your past and your return — even amongst yourselves — the entire experience will be excised from your memory." The alien stared directly at Spock. "You have the information you will need. The debt is paid."

McCoy opened his mouth to ask a question, but the breath was knocked out of him as he fell to the floor. He rolled onto his back and bumped into Spock, who was already jumping to his feet. McCoy tried to figure out what was going on, but his eyes had begun to water from the acrid smoke that surrounded him. The scent of scorched electronics assailed him and he realized he was back on the bridge of the Enterprise.

He ducked instinctively as a phaser beam blasted into a bulkhead, but it wasn't anywhere near him. He looked around and noted with some pride that his medical staff were calmly pulling the injured off to the side and tending to them without giving any heed to the combat waging around them. Generally speaking, his team wouldn't have been called to the bridge until the battle was over. But when the captain goes down, medteams get called – no matter the circumstances. His kit was right where he'd left it, and so was Kirk. There must not have been anything left to shoot at or run from, because Sulu and Chekov had both left their posts to join the fight by the time McCoy scrambled to Kirk's side.

An iron grip seized his arm, nearly causing McCoy to drop his tricorder. "What happened?" Kirk demanded through teeth clenched in pain.

McCoy shoved a hypo under his nose. "If you try to sit up, I swear I will drug you senseless."

Kirk scowled at him, but let his head fall back to the deck with small grunt while McCoy started to peel back the charred layer of his uniform to get at the shoulder wound. It was easier to think now, but Kirk knew he must have a concussion. He twisted his neck, trying to check the status of his crew. To his relief, it looked like the last of the Romulans had been taken down and he found Spock hauling the unconscious body of one of them towards the security team near the turbolift. Reinforcements had arrived at some point, for it seemed like the entire bridge was swarming with red shirted officers.

"Spock," Kirk barked.

Spock looked over his shoulder and gave him a quick nod to acknowledge the summons. Another officer quickly stepped up to relieve Spock of his charge, and the Vulcan made his way across the bridge to kneel beside Kirk. "The ship has been secured, sir," he reported. Kirk struggled to sit up, dislodging the square of absorbent bandage pressed to his shoulder. "The Romulan vessel has been destroyed," Spock added as McCoy growled in irritation and jabbed a hypo into Kirk's neck. The captain had time for a surprised gasp before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he fell back.

"I warned you," McCoy snapped.

"He will be most displeased," Spock commented as McCoy waved down a passing nurse.

"Get me a gurney," McCoy ordered without bothering to respond to Spock. "I want you in sickbay, too," he said as he replaced the bandage, sealing the edges to Kirk's blackened skin. Spock opened his mouth to object, and McCoy snatched up the hypo again to hold it in front of the Vulcan's face. "You're not immune, Spock," he threatened. "Get this mess cleaned up, but I want you down there. God only knows what's wrong with us."

Spock did not have time to argue, for two nurses had arrived with the gurney. He watched as his captain was lifted onto it and carried off the bridge, then walled away his concern and buried it under layers of logic and duty. Four of the surviving Romulan boarding party were unconscious. The fifth was sitting groggily on the deck next to his fellows, with four security officers training phasers on all of them. Perhaps now they would get some answers.

The Romulan looked up as Spock began to approach, and something about his expression stopped the first officer in his tracks. Commander Giotto fired his phaser just as the Romulan snapped his arm upwards, but wasn't in time to prevent him from slapping at something at the collar of his tunic. All five jerked in unison, and became utterly still.

"Sorry, sir," the security chief said, looking away from the corpses in shock. "I didn't …"

Spock waved a hand to quiet him and stared at the dead Romulans with regret. Such a useless waste of life, but not unexpected. "Take them to the morgue," Spock said calmly and turned away from the sight. "Damage report," he ordered as he headed for the command chair. The stunned crew took a moment to gather themselves, then quickly returned to their stations. Some one turned off the red alert. The reports began rolling in while the injured and dead were removed from the bridge.

Spock chose to ignore their confused glances as they returned to their duties. For the crew of the Enterprise, it had been a whirlwind event that, from beginning to end, took less than thirty minutes. No one dared to ask for an explanation, however. A few furtive glances were cast Spock's way, but the Vulcan remained silent, his elbows resting on the arms of the command chair with his fingers laced together and steepled in his manner of deep thought.

Spock had recognized the alien. Their image was scattered through Vulcan's most ancient myths, from a time before they began recording their own history. There were some scholars on Vulcan who believed these images were at least partially true, representing something that had happened far in the planet's past. These scholars were generally ignored, which was the Vulcan equivalent of derision. Spock knew what it was like to have one's theories dismissed out of hand, and strongly wished that he could validate those historians with the knowledge he had obtained. But he could not. He had no doubt that the aliens could and would remove the memory if he did not heed their warning.

Apparently, McCoy had also recognized them.

Spock abruptly got up from the command chair and headed to his science station, ignoring the curious looks of his crewmates. He was plying the consol for information even before he was seated, and did not see Lieutenant Sulu wave people back to their business. The helmsman discretely took over bridge duties, routing various requisitions and reports away from the first officer while Spock worked. Repairs to the bridge were done as quietly as possible over the next several hours, and still Spock did not enlighten the crew.

By that point, however, no one was expecting enlightenment. There was an air of resignation on the part of the crew, as they realized one by one that this was probably going to be one of those classified events that they would never really know about, despite having been present at the time.

Eventually, it was the ship's chief medical officer that broke the Vulcan's concentration. "McCoy to the bridge."

Spock crossed back to the command chair and toggled a switch on the arm without sitting down. "Spock here."

McCoy's voice was laden with exhaustion and annoyance, making his accent exceptionally noticeable. "The captain would like a word, Mister Spock."

"Acknowledged," Spock said and closed the channel.

Spock straitened his shoulders and resisted the urge to sigh. Once he reached sickbay, the doctor would almost certainly remove him from active duty. Spock could feel his own weakness demanding his attention now that the danger had passed. More than the physical exhaustion, it was the mental strain that was forcing Spock to think the doctor would be correct to do so. He desperately needed to meditate, to put his mind to rights. But not before he delivered what he knew would be an unsatisfactory and incomplete report to his captain.

Spock headed for the turbolift. "Mister Sulu," he said as the doors parted for him. He stepped in and turned, his hands clasped behind his back. "You have the bridge."


	10. Chapter 10

It was like walking into a force field, so thick was the tension in Sickbay when the doors parted. McCoy had evidently not moved from the 'com, and stood with his arms crossed and a pronounced scowl on his face.

The captain was glaring at the doctor, but switched the full force of his anger to the Vulcan as Spock entered. "I hope my first officer is more informative than my chief medical officer."

Spock was silent as Kirk crossed the small room to McCoy's desk and picked up a gold command tunic. The skin on Kirk's shoulder was shiny and pink with newness, but flexed smoothly as he pulled the shirt over his head. Kirk tugged the hem down as he turned, then placed his fists on his hips as neither McCoy nor Spock offered anything.

"You shouldn't be moving around, Jim," McCoy said, his voice a mixture of annoyance and concern. "You've still got a concussion, and the seda—" he broke off at Kirk's angry scowl.

Kirk knew McCoy was right. His head was pounding and the room had this annoying tendency to spin on him. But he was angry, and that anger kept him fueled. He looked back at Spock. "What happened?"

Spock took a slow breath and met his captain's eyes calmly. "I am not entirely certain," he said truthfully.

"I see," Kirk said. He pinched the bridge of his nose, and was suddenly far too calm. "Rather, I'll tell you what I did see," he continued as he clasped his hands behind his back and began pacing. Spock and McCoy both eyed him warily, because they knew this artificial calm was the most dangerous kind. "I saw a Romulan boarding party attempt to take over my ship. I saw one of them vanish, with the two of you, and with what I know was a time travel device." Kirk paused in his pacing to level a cool gaze at Spock. "Before that, I saw the two of you, looking exactly as you do now, appear in a corridor with the same device." Kirk moved a step closer to Spock and tilted his head. "Now I have several Romulan corpses in the mortuary, and a time traveling device that seems to have completely vanished along with another Romulan. That's what I see."

Spock straightened his shoulders as Kirk took another step closer, standing toe to toe with the Vulcan to look him directly in the eye.

"What I don't see," Kirk said very quietly, "is why two of my officers are withholding information vital to the security of the Enterprise."

Spock was possessed of a singularly strong will, but he could feel that will beginning to waver when pitted against that of one James T. Kirk. Spock was convinced, however, that his and McCoy's experiences in the past would be needed at some point in the future. He was certain that was what the alien had meant. He was also quite certain the alien would enforce its threat to remove the memory. Spock lowered his eyes, but remained silent.

"You're both relieved of duty and confined to quarters," Kirk snapped.

"Jim," McCoy objected with a heavy sigh. "You're just going to have to trust us on this one. Please."

Kirk frowned as he noticed the state of his uniform for the first time, and looked back at Spock. Standing this close to the Vulcan, Kirk could see that he looked horrible, worse than whatever he'd seen in the corridor before all of this began. The bruise on his jaw had darkened and was coated in a thin layer of unshaven stubble. Up close, he could see that the small tears in his uniform each had a green outline, as though he'd been sprayed with shards of glass that had cut right through the material. Spock's sense of duty had kept him on the bridge, but Kirk could clearly see that the Vulcan belonged in sickbay.

The captain's irritation was fizzling in the face of his growing concern. Kirk did trust them. What he was having trouble with was why they weren't trusting _him_. "Spock," he said, taking his first officer by the shoulders to give him a little shake. "What in the world happ—"

Spock inhaled sharply, an aborted gasp. Kirk snatched his hands back as though he'd burned his friend, but moved quickly to catch Spock as the Vulcan staggered back a step. The bulkhead caught them both, but it was Kirk that was keeping them upright. Spock gave up on trying to stand on his own power and instead focused on shoring up his mental shields. He'd had no idea they were weakened so much. Any other person, and it would not have been such a problem. But Jim's mind had always been... Spock's eyes widened in dawning realization.

"Bones!" Kirk barked, but McCoy had already bolted across Sickbay to snatch up a tricorder.

Kirk leaned to one side to let him in closer, but McCoy was shaking his head as he waved the medical attachment over Spock. "That infernal machine," he said angrily. "I knew this was—" the doctor's eyes rolled into the back of his head.

Kirk lunged for him, but he was not fast enough and lost his grip on Spock as all three fell to the deck. He untangled himself from the pile of arms and legs and got to his knees. He gave his head a firm shake to try to clear it, but the room refused to stay still. He should have let McCoy finish patching him up, but the doctor's evasive replies to his questions had set him off. McCoy had obviously been prepared for a fight, though; Sickbay was empty except for the three of them. That was a problem.

Spock was mortified by his inability to move. McCoy was evidently correct, however. The time travel machine's rough handling had finally caught up to him. It was not so much the physical exhaustion that was sapping his strength, but the mental. He watched, unmoving, as Kirk managed to get to his feet and cross to the 'com on the wall. There was a rushing sound in his ears so he did not hear what the captain said into it, but it was no doubt a call for assistance. Spock struggled to hang onto consciousness as black pinpricks encroached on the blurry edges of his vision.

The captain made it back to McCoy, and knelt to turn him over. He checked for a pulse, and breathed out a relieved sigh. Spock had no doubt that it was the doctor's careless choice of words that had resulted in his collapse, but he too was relieved. He had not gotten any sense of malice from his brief mental encounter with the alien, but that mind had been so unlike anything he had ever encountered that he couldn't be certain what would constitute malice to that race. The probe had been quite thorough, and in fact was contributing to his current lack of shielding, but to that alien it had been the same as using a tricorder to obtain information.

He let out an involuntary gasp as Kirk tried to move him, and made an instinctive, if feeble, attempt to bat the captain's hands away. "Please," Spock managed to say, his voice raspy with strain. "Do not..." Kirk instantly let go of him and Spock rolled onto his back.

From the very beginning, Spock had always felt an affinity for Jim. He had never met anyone who had accepted him, a half-breed torn between two worlds, as easily and as completely as did the new captain of the Enterprise. They were nearing the end of their five year mission, and during that time trying circumstances had necessitated the need to meld with various members of the crew. Though they understood the need, and had agreed to the intrusion, it was still alien and uncomfortable to them. There was something more about touching Jim's mind. Something deeper, no matter how superficial he might try to make the joining.

He was vaguely aware of a horde of medical personnel flooding into Sickbay, of Jim's muffled voice telling them what had happened. He felt hands on him, felt emotions brushing up against his weakened mental shields as he was lifted from the deck, but it was nothing compared to the shock to his system that Jim's touch brought. It was as if his shields did not exist to the human, unless he put extra effort into them. Effort that he simply could not spare at the moment.

James T. Kirk was a very private man, and did not take well to any intrusion into his privacy no matter how well intentioned. Yet despite this, one quiet night over a game of chess several years ago, Jim had given him permission to do whatever he felt was needed for the safety of the Enterprise and her crew. Including the captain. He had said that the only way he would ever object was if he was not in his right mind – and then Spock absolutely had permission to correct that. Thus, Spock had felt no hesitation in his light meld with the infant Jim, because it had been necessary. The second meld had been a kindness... not truly needed. But he had felt no guilt in that either. He had come to believe that he could not allow Jim to suffer when it was within his power to prevent it.

A firm surface beneath his back told Spock he was on a biobed. His sight had already gone, and the voices around him were little more than indistinct, meaningless sounds. Spock's final thoughts as darkness clutched at him was that those events in Iowa were not new. He, McCoy, and that Romulan had not altered the past at all – they had already been a part of it.

The ramifications of that realization of the past's effect on the present sent Spock's mind reeling into the blackness and were the first to greet him when he awoke.

Spock blinked until Nurse Chapel's face came into focus.

She smiled down at him. "Welcome back, Mister Spock," she said and moved away before he could summon a reply.

He saw that the biobed next to his was occupied by the captain, and the one next to that had the doctor. Both were unconscious but it looked like McCoy would be rejoining them soon. McCoy let out a small moan as Chapel pressed a hypo to Kirk's arm.

McCoy propped himself up on his elbows and looked around blearily.

"I strongly advise you to remain in bed, Doctor McCoy," Nurse Chapel said as she reloaded the hypo with another cartridge.

McCoy ignored her, and looked at Spock, raising a hand to tap at the side of his head. "Still there," he said. "One hell of a warning, though."

Spock raised an eyebrow but did not reply, though he was gratified that McCoy had not lost the memory. He was more preoccupied with the captain, who was blinking up at the ceiling. He could not explain the thing he had done without breaking the restriction placed on speaking of the time travel incident.

McCoy struggled until he was upright, but stopped as Nurse Chapel approached. She held the hypospray close enough to the doctor so that he could see the label. "You wouldn't dare," McCoy said in disbelief.

Chapel had served with Leonard McCoy far too long, for her voice was calm and steady. "I can't release you from Sickbay, Doctor, let alone declare you fit for duty."

McCoy turned to look at Kirk, who had managed to get into a sitting position. Kirk ran a hand through his hair and looked at Spock, who had not bothered to move.

Chapel held out a clipboard, the old fashioned kind with real paper that McCoy favored. The doctor snatched it out of her hands and scowled down at it. Then he flipped a page. And another. He chewed at the inside of his cheek in frustration, then handed it back to her. He flopped back onto the mattress with a distinct air of ill grace.

Kirk gave a little snort of amusement as he swung his legs over the side of the biobed.

"I'm sorry, Captain," Chapel said, "but all three of you are confined to Sickbay."

Kirk raised both eyebrows at her with indignation, but the nurse was not to be deterred. She raised the hypospray and smiled. "I will sedate you, sir, if necessary."

Temporarily stunned into silence, he watched as Chapel placed a hand on the biomonitor above McCoy. The forward half of the bed inclined into a half-seated position with a soft hum of electricity, and Chapel smiled sweetly at McCoy's glare.

McCoy snorted and wriggled his bony shoulders deeper into the pillow to get comfortable. "Don't try to fight it, Jim."

Kirk looked at Spock as Chapel crossed to the Vulcan's bed. Spock made no objection as she adjusted the angle of the biobed, and merely gave a small sigh as she insisted on placing an extra pillow behind his head. He was in desperate need of meditation, and sleep, and was too exhausted to even attempt to hide it. She pressed another control, and within seconds the mattress beneath him warmed to a most agreeable temperature.

Kirk held up a hand as Chapel got near him. "You can't keep me here, Nurse."

Chapel smiled at him as she adjusted his bed as well. She fluffed a pillow, set it in place, and then pushed a hand against Kirk's chest. The captain fell back with a soft woof of surprise. He opened his mouth to object, but Chapel brandished the hypo.

The three highest ranking officers on the ship were being held at bay by a woman with a hypospray. Kirk couldn't stop the laugh that suddenly burst out of him, and he raised both hands in surrender.

"Told ya," McCoy muttered with a huge yawn.

Chapel moved to the foot of Kirk's bed and smiled at all three of them in turn. There was more than a little amusement in that smile, and a hefty dollop of satisfaction. She waggled the hypospray at them before turning to leave Sickbay.

"Congratulations, Bones," Kirk said as the door closed behind her. "You've created a second in command that's just as sadistic as you are."

The only reply he received was a snore, and Kirk turned to see that McCoy was already sound asleep. Kirk sighed, and decided to make the most of his captivity. He adjusted the pillow at his back, then pulled the biobed's library reader towards him.

There were no restrictions placed on it, and his call to the bridge was answered almost immediately by Scotty. "Aye, hello Cap'n!" the engineer greeted with a huge, beaming smile. "Are ye being held hostage by Doctor McCoy's wee tyrant?"

"Yes," Kirk admitted. Scotty's cheer was contagious, so it was hard to be upset at her. From McCoy's reaction, they did probably need to be in sickbay. His shoulder itched like crazy and his head was still throbbing. He was grateful the sickbay staff respected his desire to avoid painkillers, as they tended to stunt his ability to concentrate. Best to just give in with dignity.

Scotty hesitated for a moment. "Ah, Cap'n, the lass does have the authority at the moment, Sir. I cannae-"

Kirk waved a hand to stop him. "It's fine, Scotty. I just want a status report."

"Oh," Scotty said, and his cheery smile returned. "In that case, Sir, I'm pleased to report that nothing of any interest has happened since the intruders were... ah... apprehended." Scotty paused uncertainly, but one of the few things Kirk had managed to get out of McCoy before the doctor had called Spock down to Sickbay was the fate of the Romulans. Most of them, anyway.

Kirk nodded for him to continue.

Scott shrugged. "Tha's about it, Sir. Most of the damage has been repaired, and nary a peep has been heard from the Romulan Star Empire. We, ah," Scotty paused again, uncertain. "We haven't filed a report with Starfleet just yet."

Kirk looked over at Spock at this statement, for that ought to have been done by now. Spock just regarded him with a blank, calm expression. Something about Spock's silence was eating at Kirk. At first it had made him angry, but that anger had burned away until only concern was left behind.

Kirk waved a hand. "Leave that to me, Scotty."

"Aye, sir," his chief engineer said with more than a hint of relief. "An it's good to hear from ye, sir."

Kirk signed off and looked over at McCoy as another soft snore drifted up from the doctor. He supposed, if he had to be confined to sickbay, that at least he was in good company. He smiled, and looked over at Spock on his other side. The smile faltered at Spock's silent stare.

Something was obviously troubling his friend. Now that he'd calmed down, he knew Spock wouldn't deny him information unless it was absolutely necessary. Which meant that, whatever had happened to them, they were being coerced into silence. "Listen," he said. "I'm not happy about it, Spock, but..." he paused to take a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I trust you. If you say you can't tell me what happened... then... I guess I just have to accept that." Kirk's mouth twisted in a sardonic little smile. "'Specialy if you and Bones both agree on the same thing."

Spock said nothing. Of course Jim trusted him. Exposure to Spock's mind, at such an early age, had left an impression on Jim's undeveloped brain. The permission given was not fair. It's very existence was a paradox. Jim Kirk had been predisposed to trust him by events that had happened long before the Vulcan had joined Starfleet. It was not of his own free will.

Kirk frowned. "I know that you would never do anything to put the Enterprise in danger. Ever."

Spock blinked. That was true, and had nothing to do with Spock's interference in Iowa's past.

Kirk sighed. He looked back over at McCoy and wished he knew what was wrong. "I trust both of you."

Spock's shoulders relaxed. That was also true. Jim Kirk trusted McCoy every bit as much, and in fact had always had a tendency to put faith in people. There was still a connection between them, forged over time by multiple contacts. A link that Spock had never noticed before and could barely detect even now. But it was an immense relief to think perhaps Jim's trust in Spock was not a result of the Vulcan's tampering. That it was not against his will.

"Thank you," Spock said.

Kirk smiled. "Get some rest, Spock."

Spock needed meditation more than rest, at this point, but did not reply. His eyes slid closed as he cleared his mind and sank into the welcome emptiness. If his memories could be likened to pages, it felt as if most of those pages had been scattered across a table. Spock began to sort through them, putting them back into the nice, logical order that he preferred.

Spock did not know what to do about his discovery of the unintentional connection. He hesitated to call it a bond, for it was nothing that substantial. It was not something that Jim had consented to - indeed, Jim was no doubt completely unaware of it.

Spock could not tell him of it, however. Not without being able to explain _how_ it had happened. And when. And that option had been taken from him by a brief encounter with an alien. He would have to meditate on that another time. He did not know what future events that alien had spoken of. It could happen tomorrow, or many years from now. There were many unanswered questions resulting from the past couple days, questions that may never get answered. There was no logic in dwelling on them. For now, the Enterprise was safe, and things were as normal as they generally got for the starship and her crew.

Spock resisted a sigh as a loud snore from McCoy drifted into his meditation.

* * *

><p><strong>Author's Note: <strong>The telepathic bond between Vulcan mates is a matter of canon. As a matter of fanon, Gene Roddenberry's only published novel told of a link between Kirk and Spock. He did not state it as a marriage bond, nor as an intentional one, and I personally do not write it as such. But I do choose to believe it existed. The fact that Sarek managed to hide three heart attacks from Amanda is the basis of my notion that a Vulcan-human bond is not as perceptible to the human half of such a union. In my personal Star Trek Timeline, the discovery of this accidental bond played a large part in Spock's running to Gol and Kolinahr prior to the events in The Motion Picture. But that's a scrawling for another time.


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